OSG: Arrest orders for 20 NPA negotiators based on SC ruling

Solicitor General Jose Calida. KING RODRIGUEZ/Presidential Photos

MANILA — Solicitor General Jose Calida said the arrest order on the 20 National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultants led by Benito and Wilma Tiamzon was based on the Supreme Court order and not the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).

Calida cited a Supreme Court ruling as the basis for ordering the immediate arrest of the NDFP consultants who were granted temporary bail from detention to participate in the peace negotiations in Oslo, Norway, and Rome, Italy.

He said the high court ruling on the case of Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo and rebel leaders Randall Echanis and Vicente Ladlad stated that “once their participation ceases or the peace negotiations are terminated, their respective bonds shall be deemed automatically cancelled.”

With President Rodrigo Duterte’s termination of the peace talks, Calida said that the bail bonds of the NDFP consultants were “automatically” cancelled.

“There is no more provisional liberty, therefore they should be recommitted to detention facilities.  If they are not placed in detention cells, they are considered fugitives from justice. They can be subject to citizen’s arrest,” said Calida.

Calida said that the JASIG, an agreement signed between the Philippine government and the NDFP in 1995, which guaranteed safe conduct pass to all rebel negotiators, “has already served its purpose” and could not be used as the basis for the NDFP to consider its leaders exempt from immediate arrest.  SFM