By MARILOU M. AGUIRRE | Davao Today
TAGUM CITY — Government insists on a ceasefire before it can resume the stalled peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales said.
“There must be a cessation of hostilities first,” Gonzales said during the Local Peace and Security Assembly (LPSA) for Davao Region. He said the government panel already relayed its stand to Prof. Jose Ma. Sison, the NDFP chief political consultant, in one of their meetings in Utrecth, The Netherlands.
Gonzales said the national security cluster has already agreed on the ceasefire as the precondition to the peace talks. The Philippine government is eager on resuming the peace talks if the NDFP agrees with their precondition, he added.
In a statement found in their website (http://www.philippinerevolution.net), Sison said that peace negotiations must be resumed “without preconditions and in accordance with prior agreements from The Hague Joint Declaration of 1992 to the Oslo Joint Statements of 2004.”
With the setting of precondition, Sison said the government “seeks to avoid negotiations on basic social, economic and political reforms and to give its military and police forces all the leeway to perpetrate human rights violations with impunity.”
Gonzales denied that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) commits human rights violations, that is, the GRP does not kill members of progressive organizations. He said they are open to peace talks anytime, but, he does not like the idea that they are being tricked as Sison, allegedly, subjected them to assassination.
Gonzales said that after President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, he is number two in the New People’s Army’s (NPA) list of persons to be assassinated, based on the information from the Philippine National Police (PNP).
As a result, he has been assigned body guards both from the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the PNP, wherever he goes; and security gadgets such as bullet proof vest and bomb proof car.
Gonzales said he is worried that in 2010 they cannot protect themselves anymore, when they will no longer be in the government. He said Sison has revived the sparrow units of the NPA. “Do you know that he recently ordered the formation of assassination groups in 43 provinces (of the country)?” he told guests and participants of the LPSA.
But in an interview with Bulatlat (www.bulatlat.com) late last year, Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the NDFP negotiating panel, said that it was Gonzales who proposed to assassinate Sison. Jalandoni said Gonzales made the proposal at a top level GRP national security meeting in late 2004, but Gonzales denied it.
Jalandoni accused Gonzales of being a “saboteur” of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. As head of the Inter-Agency Legal Action Group, Gonzales allegedly fabricated numerous trumped-up charges against Sison, the NDFP Negotiating Panel members, consultants and staff, in gross violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees, Jalandoni said.
NDFP peace consultants Angelina Bisua-Ipong and Elizabeth Principe have been abducted and incarcerated, according to Communist Party of the Philippines spokesperson Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal in the website (www.philippinerevolution.net). “The series of earlier abductions of NDFP peace consultants reflect the Arroyo regime’s complete disregard for peace negotiations,” Rosal said.
The CPP has been demanding the release of Ipong, Principe, and Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas Deputy General Secretary for External Affairs Randall Echanis, who are reported to be under the custody of the military.
Clashes between the government troops and the NPA continue since 2004 when peace talks between the GRP and the NDFP has been stalled. (Marilou M. Aguirre/davaotoday.com)
Peace Process
