Kapunan denies hand in Olalia-Alay-ay murders, but admits ordering surveillance on labor leader

Veronica Uy, InterAksyon.com

MANILA, Philippines -- Former coup leader Eduardo “Red” Kapunan on Tuesday denied any involvement in the abduction, torture, and murder of labor leader Rolando Olalia and his driver Leonor Alay-ay.

However, in his open court testimony, Kapunan admitted to ordering the surveillance of Olalia and the late Labor Secretary Augusto “Bobbit” Sanchez in the turbulent months after the EDSA People Power Revolt on suspicion of the “linkage” of the administration of the late President Corazon Aquino to the left.

“I did not have any participation in (the murders),” said Kapunan, a member of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement that helped then Defense Secretary and now Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile stage the failed February 1986 coup against the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos that sparked the uprising that eventually forced the strongman to flee to Hawaii.

“I admit to the surveillance but not to the apprehension, abduction, slaying, and the cover-up,” he said in direct examination.

When he was assigned from the Special Operations Group of the defense ministry, then under Enrile, to the General Headquarters Brigade on September 16, 1986, Kapunan said he immediately terminated the surveillance.

Kapunan said he did not stay long at the GHQB because in December 1986, he was transferred to the Philippine Military Academy.

The retired colonel, whose specialty in intelligence gathering was established in court, admitted to his involvement in the December 1989 coup attempt, the bloodiest against the Aquino administration.

Asked by his lawyer, Lorna Kapunan, why he surrendered, he said he wanted to test the amnesty granted to him by former President Fidel V. Ramos under Proclamation No. 347 on March 25, 1995.

His amnesty certificate and identification card were admitted as evidence in court.

In the judge’s offices before the trial, Kapunan refused to comment on the mention of his “mistah,” Senator Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, during last week’s hearing when state witness Eduardo Bueno, a former sergeant, told the court Honasan commanded the SOG, which carried out the operation against Olalia