Gov’t sees talks with Reds next month

Davao City—The government remains hopeful the peace negotiations with the communist National Democratic Front would resume in September after they were suspended in June over the government’s failure to release from jail NDF members supposedly covered by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantee (Jasig).

Ednar Dayanghirang, a member of the government panel, said they were proposing that the September talks cover the June and August sessions that were missed by the reciprocal working committee on socioeconomic reforms.

Dayanghirang said the government panel had completed its draft of the comprehensive agreement on socioeconomic reforms (Caser), considered the most contentious of the remaining agenda needed to end the 43-year communist rebellion.

In a Feb. 21 joint statement issued in Oslo following the resumption of the talks, both panels set the first deadline for the Caser in September.

“We are hopeful that schedules will push through,” Dayanghirang said.

“We plan a series of long sessions in September to cover for the months that we did not meet.”

He said the government was committed to releasing the political prisoners as a confidence-building measure but actual releases depended on the appreciation of the courts.

“We cannot just release the prisoners wholesale, because the executive branch cannot dictate upon the judges,” he said.

The NDF had demanded the government release the prisoners based on the Jasig, an agreement that provides for the safety of NDF consultants participating in the talks. Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao