NDF warns of new attacks unless jailed ‘consultants’ are released

MANILA, Philippines – Hostilities may escalate if the government continues to tarry on the release of political prisoners before peace talks resume next month, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines warned on Saturday.

The NDFP said the release of its remaining consultants protected by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig) was not a precondition but rather the government’s “obligation” under the Jasig and agreements reached in Oslo early this year.

“The revolutionary movement is prepared for the escalation of the Aquino regime’s war of suppression through the intensification of mass struggles and heightening the people’s armed revolution in order to defend the people against the fascist onslaughts and brutalities of the Armed Forces of the Philippines,” NDFP negotiating panel spokesman Fidel V. Agcaoili said in a statement.

He said the government panel was lying when it claimed that NDFP peace panel chairman Luis Jalandoni had agreed to go into formal talks without the obligatory releases of the NDFP consultants in 2011.

“The GPH [government of the Philippines] must recognize that compliance with the Jasig and the Oslo joint statements is not a precondition but an obligation,” Agcaoili said.

He noted that since President Benigno Aquino III came to power, the communist New People’s Army has released seven prisoners of war on humanitarian grounds and as a goodwill measure.

“In contrast, the GPH has released only five of the 17 Jasig-protected individuals, most of whom have been in prison since the time of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, despite agreements to release all or most of them by June 2011 under the Oslo joint statements,” Agcaoili said.

He said the government’s refusal to fulfill its obligation was based on the “whim” of the head of the government panel, Alexander Padilla.

“The GPH proves what the NDFP has been saying all along – that the GPH cannot be trusted to comply with mutually signed agreements, that it does not have word of honor, and that it has not been negotiating in good faith with the NDFP,” Agcaoili said.

He added that by continuing  to claim that it had no obligations under signed agreements, the government panel showed it “has no interest in pursuing the peace negotiations with the NDFP.”

“The GPH is eager to scuttle the talks after failing to extract capitulation from the NDFP. It wants to escalate its military suppression campaign against the revolutionary movement and the people through Oplan Bayanihan, a US-designed counterrevolutionary strategy that is masked under the signboard of peace and development campaigns,” he said.