(Updated 1:59 p.m.) A Bulacan court has issued an arrest warrant against retired Army general Jovito Palparan, who is charged for the disappearance of two student activists in 2006.
 
Prosecutor General Claro Arellano told GMA News Online that Judge Teodora Gonzales of the Regional Trial Court Branch 14 in Malolos, Bulacan issued the arrest warrant on Monday afternoon, hours after Palparan's attempt to leave the country was blocked by the Bureau of Immigration.
 
"Any officer of the law... [is] hereby commanded to arrest M/Gen. Jovito S. Palparan, Jr... who stands before this Court for the crime of Violation of Article 267 of the Revised Penal Code as Amended by RA 7659 and to bring him/her before me as  soon as possible to be dealt with in accordance with law," Judge Gonzales said in the warrant.
 
Apart from Palparan, also ordered arrested were Lt. Col. Felipe Anotado Jr., S/Sgt. Edgardo Osorio, and M/Sgt. Rizal Hilario. The judge did not recommend any bail for any of the four accused.
 
"According to Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, they will immediately implement the arrest warrant," Arellano said.
 
Arellano said apart from an arrest warrant, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has also asked the court to issue an order placing Palparan and the three others on the Immigration watch list.
 
"Pero hindi pa nare-resolve ang request namin na iyon," Arellano added.
 
On Monday morning, Palparan tried to leave the country for Singapore via a Seair flight but was barred from doing so by Immigration agents.
 
Justice Secretary Leila de Lima later explained that while the first watch list order issued against Palparan had expired, it has yet to be officially lifted.
 
In a resolution dated Dec. 15, the panel of prosecutors investigating the incident found "probable cause" to charge Palparan, Anotado, Hilario, and Osorio with two counts of kidnapping and serious illegal detention in connection with the abduction of University of the Philippines students Sherlyn Cadapan and Karen Empeño.
 
Soon after the Arroyo administration heaped praise on Palparan for his counterinsurgency campaigns from 2001 to 2006, the report of the independent Melo Commission declared that, "there is certainly evidence pointing the finger of suspicion at some elements and personalities in the armed forces, in particular General Palparan, as responsible for an undetermined number of killings, by allowing, tolerating, and even encouraging the killings."
 
After Palparan's retirement from the military in 2006, he won a seat in Congress through Bantay, the anti-communist party-list group he heads. Just before he retired, then-President Gloria Arroyo publicly commended him during her State of the Nation Address.
 
In the 2010 elections, he sought a Senate seat but was unsuccessful. – KG/KBK, GMA News