NDF: Release of consultants a gov’t obligation

Hostilities with communist rebels could escalate if the government continues to delay the release of political prisoners before peace talks resume next month, the communist-led National Democratic Front (NDF) warned on Saturday.

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

The communists are prepared to escalate the conflict through “the intensification of mass struggles and heightening the people’s armed revolution” to defend the people against the “onslaughts and brutalities” of the Armed Forces, said Fidel Agcaoili, the NDF spokesperson, in a statement.

According to Agcaoili, the government negotiating panel was lying when it claimed that Luis Jalandoni, the chair of the NDF negotiating panel, had agreed to go into formal talks in 2011 without the NDF “consultants” being released first.

“The [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.

Reds released 7

He noted that since President Aquino came to power, the New People’s Army, the Communist Party of the Philippines’ armed wing, had released seven prisoners of war on humanitarian grounds and as a goodwill measure.

“In contrast, the [government] 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 government panel chair, Alexander Padilla.

He said this proved what the rebels have been saying all along—that the Philippine government “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.”

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, Agcaoili said.