Show sincerity, President Aquino dares Reds

After a controversial secret meeting with Muslim secessionist rebels, President Benigno Aquino III is shifting his attention to communist insurgents who recently abducted a town mayor and two security escorts in Surigao del Sur, and four jail guards in Bukidnon.

The President said communist rebels should also show they are sincere in wanting to hold peace talks with the government in light of his move to release National Democratic Front (NDF) consultants jailed for various offenses.

He told reporters on Monday that he would meet with Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Teresita Deles to discuss the abduction last week of Lingig town Mayor Henry Dano and his two bodyguards by the New Peoples’ Army, the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

The CPP-NPA has been waging a Maoist guerrilla war in the Philippines for more than 40 years.

The President noted that apart from Dano and his bodyguards, the NPA also took a jail warden and three personnel of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology who were transporting an inmate, said to be a commander of the NPA, in Bukidnon last week.

“They were just doing their duty to transport the prisoner,” the President said.

Asked whether the actions of the NPA were treacherous considering that government peace negotiators were talking with their counterparts on the release of more NDF consultants to help hasten the peace process, the President said: “They should also make a gesture to show that they are sincere (in the peace talks).”

But he refrained from making more statements pending his meeting with Deles on Monday afternoon.

The President said he and Deles had been concentrating on his meeting with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) leaders that took place last week in Japan.

Rebels holding the four jail guards have reportedly communicated a demand to swap the jail guards for six of their comrades who are detained on various criminal charges. The military has so far rejected a prisoner swap.

An Army spokesperson said in a statement on Monday the abduction of the mayor and his security escorts cast doubt on the sincerity of the CPP-NPA in talking peace with the government.

“The Philippine Army is in full support of President Aquino’s endeavor for peace with militant groups but doubts the local terrorist group’s sincerity with their continuing abduction of soldiers and government officials,” Army spokesperson Col. Antonio Parlade Jr. said in a statement.

In a separate interview, Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo asked government peace negotiators to demand accountability from their communist counterparts for the abduction of the mayor.

“I think this should put pressure on the Opapp (Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process) to ask (rebel leaders), ‘Is this your response to our show of good faith?’” he said.

Parlade said the abductions also betrayed the inability of the CPP leadership to control its ground forces.

The mayor was abducted from his home in Barangay Sabangan on Aug. 6. A soldier was killed while six others were wounded when responding troops were ambushed by the rebels. NPA rebels also took four officers of the BJMP after they snatched the prisoner the officers were transporting in Bukidnon.

The Army spokesperson said they learned from the news that government chief negotiator Alexander Padilla and communist leader Fidel Agcaoili were meeting in Magallanes, Makati, on the same day.

“If they were really in command, why is it that, on the one hand, the leaders are arranging peace talks and, on the other, their subordinates are conducting kidnappings? It is evident that there are discrepancies here,” Parlade said.