Palparan moved to Bilibid prison Wednesday —Palace

Convicted abductor Jovito Palparan will be transferred to the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa on Wednesday, presidential spokesman Harry Roque said on Monday.

Roque said no less than Armed Forces of the Philippines chief of staff General Carlito Galvez Jr. made the disclosure.

"Sir, accordingly this coming Wednesday, sir," Roque quoted the AFP chief as saying when he asked when and if Palparan would be committed to the NBP.

Palparan, a retired Army major general, was being held at a detention cell in the Philippine Army headquarters in Fort Bonifacio in Taguig City.

Palparan was recently convicted for kidnapping and serious illegal detention over the disappearance in 2006 of University of the Philippines students Karen Empeño and Sherlyn Cadapan.

But even before his conviction, Palparan had become infamous with human rights groups for his heavy-handed anti-insurgency campaigns in Mindoro, Romblon, the Eastern Visayas, and Central Luzon.

Human rights abuses, indiscriminate killings, and other extrajudicial crimes were attributed to Palparan's campaign as the 8th Infantry Division in Eastern Visayas.

The Arroyo-appointed Melo Commission said there was no direct evidence linking the hundreds of killings, but conceded that there was evidence that Palparan tolerated and even encouraged the killings.

Similarly, the International Peasant Solidarity Mission and the Commission of Human Rights found evidence of military involvement in several cases of human rights violations in areas where Palparan was in charge.

Palparan was, however, cleared of charges and lived free until December 20, 2011, when a warrant for his arrest was issued following the disappearance of Cadapan and Empeño.

After almost three years in hiding, he was arrested in Manila on August 12, 2014. —NB, GMA News