NDFP Asks GRP to Live Up to Its Commitments

Press Release
22 June 2004
Oslo, Norway

For Reference:
Ruth de Leon
Head of NDFP Negotiating Panel Secretariat
Tel: + 31 624676537

Luis G. Jalandoni, Chairperson of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, asked the GRP to fulfil the commitments they make in the course of the peace negotiations. He lamented the fact that the consistent failure of the GRP to live up to its commitments was destroying the credibility of the peace negotiations.

The NDFP negotiating panel chairperson was referring to the failure to free all the 32 political prisoners promised by the GRP to be released by May 5, 2004. This is not to mention many others whose orders for release had been signed by the GRP president in 2001.

Jalandoni also stressed the fact that not enough has been done by the GRP to undertake effective measures for the removal of the CPP, NPA and Prof. Jose Maria Sison from the so-called terrorist list of the United States and the European Union. Such listing by these foreign entities constitutes a blatant interference in the internal affairs of the Philippines and a grave violation of national sovereignty.

Jalandoni refuted the claim by the GRP that five of those in the list of 32 political prisoners were members of the Abu Sayyaf. Among the five, four are minors and one an elderly man. School authorities and leaders of the community where they reside have testified that the five are peaceful citizens and have nothing to do with the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. By this unjust detention of these four minors, the GRP is violating the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Even the GRP�s own Commission on Human Rights in a memorandum issued on 26 July 2001 had concluded that many of those seized by the military were illegally arrested and falsely accused. According to this memorandum, many of those arrested were "pinpointed by informants with faces covered with masks, then brought to a military camp for �tactical interrogation�. " It is the usual practice of the Philippine military and police to create fall guys whenever they fail to catch the real culprits by producing fake witnesses and using torture to extract confessions from those they have falsely accused.

Jalandoni also decried the violence perpetrated by the Philippine military during the election period against progressive partylists such as Bayan Muna, Anakpawis and Anak ng Bayan. He made special mention of the case of Isaias Manano, Jr., secretary general of Anakbayan-Mindoro Oriental, who was killed in cold blood by elements of the Philippine military on 28 April 2004. Manano was scheduled to be married shortly to a Norwegian girl who had arrived from Norway on the day he was killed.

Luis T. Jalandoni
Chairperson
Negotiating Panel
National Democratic Front of the Philippines


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