President Rodrigo Duterte said he is ready to release more political prisoners once he sees that the peace negotiations between the government panel and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines succeed. (Paulo C. Rizal/davaotoday.com)
DAVAO CITY – President Rodrigo Duterte said he is ready to release more political prisoners once he sees that the peace negotiations between the government panel and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines succeed.
“I am ready if the successful talks are there for me to see and to hear,” Duterte said in a press conference here late night Thursday, August 24.
He said he can also accommodate all of them if they express interest in joining government.
“Many of them are already there,” Duterte said.
Duterte offered four Cabinet posts to the Communist Party of the Philippines after winning the P
residential elections in May.
Since peace negotiations are still ongoing, the NDF, the political wing of the CPP, submitted a list of names of progressive individuals who they recommended to be appointed in Cabinet positions.
Leaders from the Left appointed to the Cabinet were Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano, Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglungsod, Social Welfare Undersecretary Mae Fe Templa, and National Anti-Poverty Commission Chair Liza Maza.
“And I’m ready to give more. I can accommodate all of them,” Duterte said.
More than 500 political prisoners
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan in Southern Mindanao said there are “580 political prisoners all over the country”.
“Eighty of them are in Southern Mindanao,” said Sheena Duazo, regional secretary general of Bayan.
In a rally in front of the Department of Justice on Wednesday, August 24 activists demanded the dismissal of trumped-up charges against their leaders, including the case of direct assault against 16 farmers and leaders during the April 1 Kidapawan rally dispersal which was filed by PNP Kidapawan City chief Senior Superintendent Alexander Tagum.
“It’s very absurd for the police to file a case against us, when they are the ones who indiscriminately fired against the hungry farmers as seen in videos, ” said Duazo.
Arrest of NGO-worker
The most recent case is the “illegal arrest” of Amelia Pond, a teacher of a Lumad school and regional coordinator of the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Southern Mindanao.
Pond was arrested on August 19 in Cebu City after the national assembly of RMP held at the Living the Gospel Renewal Center.
She was tagged as an “Adelfa Toledo”, who is facing criminal charges filed at the Nabunturan RTC Branch 3 in Compostela Valley.
Cristina Palabay, secretary general of Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of Human Rights said “two falsified identification cards were planted in Pond’s bag by operatives of the Philippine National Police- Crime Investigation and Detection Group and Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines with Pond’s picture and the name Adelfa Toledo.”
Rigoberto Sanchez, spokesperson of the New People’s Army Southern Mindanao Region Operations Command said the arrest of Pond is part of the government forces’ “continuing implementation of the counter-revolutionary Oplan Bayanihan which, in Southern Mindanao, vilifies and attacks personnel, leaders, advocates, schoolchildren of community schools and IP institutions, and Lumad communities.”
He said that it is alarming that while the government has resumed the peace talks with the NDF, the government’s troops attacks against advocates and activists continue.
Sanchez said “for the peace negotiations to gain headway,” the government must drop the trumped-up charges against political prisoners in the country. (davaotoday.com)
