Roque: NDFP consultants lost protection from arrests

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque

BAGUIO CITY—An agreement guaranteeing safety and immunity from arrest to National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultants no longer gave them protection after peace talks were terminated, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said on Thursday.

Roque was reacting to statements from the NDFP denouncing the arrest on Wednesday of one of its consultants, Rafael Baylosis, and his aide, Guillermo Roque, by police and military intelligence agents in Quezon City.

He said the NDFP should file a writ of habeas corpus “if it thinks the arrest was illegal.”

Former NDFP chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni said the arrest violated the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig) that assured consultants to both peace panels they would not be subjected to “surveillance, harassment, search, arrest, detention, prosecution and interrogation or any other similar punitive action.”

According to the 1995 agreement, the government should have first served formal written notice that it was terminating the talks and the Jasig, which it had not, Jalandoni said.

“We no longer have peace negotiations and it was their own fault. They kept killing soldiers while talks were being pursued,” Roque said.