MACAPAGAL-ARROYO REGIME IS HELL BENT ON PURSUING ALL-OUT WAR POLICY
Luis T. Jalandoni
Chairperson
Negotiating Panel
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
August 09, 2002 Statements coming from the Macapagal-Arroyo regime continue to be threatening and deceptive.
Speaker of the House Jose De Venecia and GRP Negotiating Panel Chairman Silvestre Bello are deceiving the public when they try to create the illusion that a comprehensive peace agreement can be completed in a short time. They are in fact pushing a line of capitulation for the NDFP and seeking to violate The Hague Joint Declaration and other agreements.
They do not point out that the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), signed by the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels and approved by the GRP and NDFP principals in 1998 and declared officially by both the GRP and NDFP as binding and effective in 2001, remains unimplemented due to GRP refusal to approve the Guidelines for Implementation of the CARHRIHL.
They do not state the complex and painstaking negotiations that both negotiating panels and their respective reciprocal working committees on social and economic reforms have to go through to forge a comprehensive agreement on social and economic reforms (CASER) by overcoming the wide gaps in the positions between the two sides. Thereafter, the comprehensive agreement on political and constitutional reforms has to be tackled. All these cannot be rushed.
Justice Secretary Hernani Perez threatens the NDFP by declaring that the GRP will not release 47 political prisoners it was supposed to release since March this year. This threat is based on two layers of mendacity. Firstly, Mr. Perez pretends that there was the intention of the GRP to release. There was no such intention. Since last year, there were orders for the release of political prisoners signed by GRP President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, DILG Secretary Jose Lina, Justice Secretary Hernani Perez and Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes. Yet these prisoners were never released because GRP officials wanted �to play with it� to pressure the NDFP to yield to the demands of the GRP.
Secondly, Mr. Perez still persists in referring to Prof. Sison�s statement of 6 August 2002 as an order to the NPA, when it is clearly an analysis of the possible consequences of the all-out war policy declaration of Ms. Macapagal Arroyo. Prof. Sison made this very clear in his subsequent statement on 7 August 2002.
The provocativeness of Mr. Perez can be poisonous to the peace negotitions. It is deliberate malice to destroy goodwill.
By these continuing threats and deception, the GRP is showing that it is not serious in pursuing peace negotiations with the NDFP. It refuses to abide by the Hague Joint Declaration, nor the other nine agreements previously signed, including the CARHRIHL. The GRP shows it is hell bent on pursuing its all-out war policy. #
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