Kartilya

NDFP Peace Negotiator Statement at the Opening of the Formal Negotiations between GPH and NDF

Posted by Kartilya On 10:29 PM 0 comments

OPENING STATEMENT

by Luis G. Jalandoni

Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel

Oslo, 15 February 2011

State Secretary Espen Barth Eide, Deputy Director General Tomas Stangeland, Ambassadors Ture Lundh and Knut Solem, and other members of the Royal Norwegian Government facilitation team, Fredrik Steen, Lisa Golden, Aina Holm and Ida Marstein.

Secretary Teresita Deles, Chairperson of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process of the Government of the Philippines (GPH), formerly known as the GRP, Atty. Alexander A. Padilla, Chairperson of the GPH Negotiating Panel, members of the GPH Negotiating Panel Atty. Pablito Sanidad, Mr. Ednar Dayanghirang, Ms. Maria Lourdes Tison, Ms. Jurgette Malonzo, and the other members of the GPH delegation,

We in the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Negotiating Panel wish to warmly greet and convey our heartfelt thanks to the Royal Norwegian Government for its determined and painstaking efforts as Third Party Facilitator in working for this very significant resumption of formal peace talks between the GPH and the NDFP.

We are confident that we can advance in the peace negotiations by adhering to The Hague Joint Declaration and subsequent agreements. We must be guided by mutually acceptable principles, including national sovereignty, democracy and social justice, and that no precondition shall be made to negate the inherent character and purpose of the peace negotiations. We must address the roots of the armed conflict and arrive at comprehensive agreements on social, economic, political and constitutional reforms in order to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace for the benefit of our people.

After more than six years, the formal talks are resumed today. We are pleased that during the preliminary talks, Chairperson Alex Padilla declared that the GPH does not consider the CPP, NPA and NDFP terrorist organizations. We hold the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo government accountable for sabotaging the peace talks by acceding to or lobbying foreign governments to label and vilify the revolutionary forces of the Filipino people as ”terrorists” and to submit the internal affairs of the Philippines as subject to the sovereignty of such foreign governments, by speciously suspending the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) in order to level false criminal charges against the panelists, consultants and staffers of the NDFP Negotiating Panel, turning the list of JASIG-protected persons or Document of Identification (DI) holders into an arrest list and causing their illegal arrest, abduction, torture, disappearance and murder; and by undermining or reneging on its commitments to other valid and binding agreements.

The Arroyo regime perpetrated gross and systematic human rights violations not only against the NDFP and therevolutionary movement but also against a broad range of legal social activists. It systematically perpetrated more than one thousand two hundred extrajudicial killings, hundreds of frustrated killings, more than two hundred involuntary disappearances, numerous cases of torture, and the uprooting of hundreds of thousands, even millions, of civilians. It also used the notorious Inter-Agency Legal Action Group (IALAG), under the rabid militarist andNational Security Adviser, Norberto Gonzales, to file trumped-up charges and cause the imprisonment of hundreds of political prisoners.

Now, after more than six years of sabotage of the peace talks and invalid suspension of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) by the Arroyo regime, we stand at the threshold of a new beginning. It is imperative that the two negotiating parties do away with the transgressions, gore and filth of the previous regime and pave the way for accelerated and fruitful negotiations.

The gross violations and disregard of the agreements signed by both Parties underscore the need for both to reaffirm all previous peace agreements painstakingly forged by them. It is imperative to uphold and defend the validity and binding character of these agreements and commit ourselves to respect them and comply with their wise and equitable provisions so that we can move forward in our striving to achieve a just and lasting peace in our country.

The Arroyo regime's more than six-year invalid suspension of the JASIG has to be definitively erased with a firm compliance with the JASIG so as to guarantee the safety and immunity of all personnel of both Parties who are involved in the peace negotiations. The abduction, illegal detention, disappearance, torture and murder of NDFP consultants and staffers must be subjected to investigation and justice must be rendered to the victims. Past and continuing violations of the JASIG have to be rectified.

We are happy to have with us NDFP Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms (RWC-SER) members Rafael Baylosis and Randall Echanis. Their presence is concrete proof of the efficacy and respect for the JASIG. We continue to expect that the GPH work on the immediate lifting of the arrest warrants and the withdrawal or dismissal of charges against them, including NDFP political consultant Vicente Ladlad. We hope that the JASIG-protected and DI holders recently arrested under the Aquino administration are immediately released. We refer to Danilo Badayos, Pedro Codaste, Edwin Brigano, Tirso “Ka Bart” Alcantara, and now Alan Jazmines.

The expeditious release of other NDFP Consultants and JASIG-protected persons in compliance with the JASIG as well as in the spirit of goodwill or for humanitarian reasons is being facilitated by the GPH Negotiating Panel, with Atty. Pablito Sanidad kindly accepting the responsibility and enjoying the confidence of his chairperson for seeing to it that JASIG is effectively applied in order to foster the peace talks.

The long suspension by the Arroyo regime stopped the initial negotiations on social and economic reforms (SER). Only parts of the Preamble and Declaration of Principles could be agreed upon. Now there is an even more compelling need for accelerated and sustained negotiations on this second item in the substantive agenda in view of the much worsened social and economic conditions. Both Negotiating Panels have expressed their firm commitment to carry this out through their respective Reciprocal Working Committees (RWCs). The target of six months is being set for the RWCs-SER to draw up the Tentative Agreement on SER.

We urge the reciprocal working committees to have a common resolve to uphold economic sovereignty, conserve the national patrimony for the benefit of our own people, promote economic development through land reform and national industrialization, improve the people’s livelihood and develop equitable trade and economic relations with other countries. In this context, there is no insurmountable difficulty for the reciprocal working committees to draft a tentative agreement that describes and critiques the social and economic status quo and recommends the necessary reforms for separate and joint implementation until there is a Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms.

In the spirit of further accelerating the peace negotiations, both Parties have agreed to prepare in advance for the negotiations of the Reciprocal Working Committees on Political and Constitutional Reforms (PCR) through working groups on PCR. Our Chief Political Consultant, Prof. Jose Maria Sison and Atty. Pablito Sanidad will lead the discussions regarding the concept and formation of the working groups on PCR. Prof. Sison will be assisted by Fidel Agcaoili, Elizabeth Principe as consultant and Dr. Carol P. Araullo as resource person. The working groups on PCR prepare the ground for the setting up of the Reciprocal Working Committees on PCR. While this mechanism helps to accelerate the peace negotiations, the RWC Agreement of 1995 and the Supplemental Agreement thereto of 1997 are respected.

At this resumption of formal talks, there will also be the highly significant reconvening of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) which has not been able to meet since June 2004. Although the Joint Secretariat has functioned by receiving complaints, conducting training seminars and issuing publications, among others, with the support of the Royal Norwegian Government. the Arroyo regime prevented the JMC's full operationalization as mandated by the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) by prohibiting its GRP Monitoring Committee from meeting with the NDFP Monitoring Committee.

We expect that in reaffirming the CARHRIHL, the release of about 350 political prisoners will be effectively undertaken. We are glad that during the preliminary talks the GPH Negotiating Panel expressed sympathy and support for the release of the political prisoners. They deserve to be released like the 400 military prisoners for having been victims of false charges and political persecution and for having struggled against the unjust Arroyo regime. We are cognizant of the persevering efforts of human rights associations, various mass organizations and social movements in the Philippines and abroad and some members of the Senate and House of Representativesin seeking a principled amnesty for the political prisoners.

As stated in the Oslo Joint Statement of 2004, the Parties agree that the release of prisoners and detainees is a continuing confidence building measure, motivated by a mutual desire to improve the atmosphere for peace negotiations and is a benign act of magnanimity. At the same time it is in compliance with an obligation arising from the CARHRIHL which states that all prisoners and detainees charged with common crimes, detained, or convicted contrary to the GPH Hernandez doctrine should be released immediately. (Part III, Respect for Human Rights, Article 6).

We participate enthusiastically and conscientiously in the resumption of formal talks. We are resolved to do everything we can to make these talks succeed and move us forward towards forging fundamental social, economic, political and constitutional reforms that will address the roots of the armed conflict and be of lasting benefit to the Filipino people. We are glad that both Parties have agreed to a unilateral, concurrent and reciprocal ceasefire as a goodwill and confidence building measure to mark the resumption of formal talks after so many years. We consider such ceasefire a highly significant token and signal of our common desire to advance in the peace negotiations and make up for the lost years during the Arroyo regime.

Without prejudice to the established track of the peace negotiations, the NDFP has offered to the GPH a proposal for a concise agreement for an immediate just peace as the basis of alliance and truce for strengthening national independence, empowering the people and realizing the industrial development of the Philippines. This NDFP offer is a challenge to the Aquino regime to release itself from the dictates of US imperialism, especially the already bankrupt neoliberal economic policy and the futile US Counterinsurgency Guide, and to come to terms with the NDFP proposal for alliance and truce in order to strengthen national independence and carry out national industrialization.

The concurrence of the political wills of the GPH and NDFP along the patriotic and progressive line can bring about just peace and development for our people.

Thank you very much.

LUIS G. JALANDONI

Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel

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Speech of Secretary Teresita Quintos Deles at the Opening of the Formal Negotiations between GPH and NDF

Posted by Kartilya On 10:20 PM 0 comments

OPENING STATEMENT

By Sec. Teresita Quintos Deles, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process

Opening Ceremony, Formal Negotiations between GPH and NDF

I come to Oslo with a heady mix of dread and expectation, not unlike a woman in the throes of childbirth, knowing that what she does, or does not do, will have grave implications for the future. I also find it striking that here in the deep Oslo winter, we seek to thaw relations long frozen between GPH and NDF.

I know I don’t really have to be here because the job of negotiation belongs to the GPH Panel, which is doing very able job of it. I came on the Panel’s invitation to demonstrate the seriousness of the Philippine government in its peace agenda and to signify to our people the importance of this movement of restarting peace talks after a six-year impasse. I also came to express our appreciation to the Royal Norwegian Government for having stayed through the process in spite of the roller coaster character of high-stakes negotiations. Thank you, RNG.

Now let me raise three questions for our collective dialogue and debate; and, if not, at least for our individual consideration and reflection.

First, where are we coming from?

Second, where are we headed for?

Third, what blocks the way from here to there?

Or, put differently, what caveats and challenges do we face?

Where are we coming from?

As you may know, my world was NGO—non-governmental organizations—before I joined government. And my NGO advocacies—peace in particular—have become the leitmotif for my stint in government, interrupted for some time because I lost faith in its leadership. But now I am back in place with the resurgence of bona fides in the May 2010 elections.

As a representative of government, I take pride in introducing my principal—Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino—scion of the martyred Ninoy Aquino and of Cory Aquino who started this peace process a quarter of a century ago. Noynoy’s lineage, to a great extent, explains who he is and what he stands for. When he declared in his inaugural address that the ultimate goal of national security “must be the safety and well-being of our people,” this was not mere rhetoric. Because Noynoy knows what it is to be unsafe, bearing in his body the scars and bullet fragments from one of the many coup attempts that shook his mother’s presidency.

But, in a larger sense, we come from a country weary of war. From our revolution over 200 years ago to our bloody birth as a nation a century ago, we fought the Spanish and, later, the Americans and, much later in the second world war, the Japanese. The perception of an unjust peace ensuing from World War II compelled some of our countrymen and women to take up arms once more, this time against government. And so the question of justice and equity has continued to haunt all our efforts at nation-building.

What has been called the longest-running insurgency in our part of the world has torn families, communities, and the country apart. In the ‘70s and ‘80s it drew from the best and the brightest, the first fruits of the youth and student movement. Many of the GPH Panel members have come from this tradition, and all of them have paid their dues in the struggle: Pablito Sanidad and Alex Padilla, human rights lawyers; Jurgette Honculada, gender and labor rights advocate; Ednar Dayanghirang, a voice for the indigenous peoples; and Lourdes Tison, environmental activist.

The cost in lives and a stunted economy is incalculable. There also are more insidious costs: a deepening culture of violence that holds even young children in thrall; a culture of despair that breeds apathy and cynicism across generations; a polarized mindset that brooks no dissent, viewing the other as enemy; and descending into cut-throat hostilities that makes losers of us all.

And yet there is a growing, surging current that says no more to war and war games. From the remotest mountain and coastal villages to our urban poor and middle class communities, the clamor for peace cannot be denied. Our people are saying, the landscape of war must give way to the imperatives of peace. And they have created zones of peace, sanctuaries of peace to provide safe haven from abuse and bloodshed by the militias of any stripe or color.

It is this call to make of the entire country a zone of peace that gives us our mandate to come to the negotiating table once more. This and the attendant realization that the war cannot be won by force of arms on either side.

Where are we headed for?

GPH seeks a political settlement as the way to a just and enduring peace. We have no illusions that signing a peace treaty will solve all our problems. Not at all, for peace without justice, peace without development is a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. But a political settlement, a peace treaty, will be a beginning. Stilling the guns of war is essential to harnessing all our resources for nation building, especially at a time when the global economic crisis has hit hard countries like the Philippines.

Clearly, there is much that divides the two panels that come to this table. On both sides, there is a legacy of pain; but there is also much that unites us—the vision of a just society, the desiderata of national sovereignty, the wish to reverse the drain in human and natural resources, the imperative of good governance; and more. It is on this common ground, this interface, that we come to the table, seeking to negotiate our differences and to deepen our unities.

Is this baying for the moon? They said this of Sinn Fein and the IRA, of the internecine conflict in South Africa, in Aceh and Nepal. And yet, Northern Ireland and South Africa, having taken the path of peace, have stayed the course, finding it infinitely more rewarding than shooting each other down.

Since I am supposed to give just some remarks, let me end with my final point which is: What blocks the road to peace? What are some of the caveats and challenges?

I do not presume to be exhaustive or comprehensive but let me sum up the caveats thus: let it not be said that the peace talks failed because of a failure of nerve, a failure of will, a failure of the imagination on our part. I say a failure of nerve because, having marched for so long to the drumbeat of war, we are unnerved by the fear of losing our step. I say failure of will because we would rather stick to our old formulas rather than risk losing ground and losing face. I say failure of the imagination because we cannot let go of our fossilized ways of thinking and doing things, blind to the fact that the way to life is to make all things new.

As well, let me underscore just two of the multiple challenges we face.

The first challenge is to tackle the substance of peace—socio-economic reforms, for instance—and not just its form, which is what pacification is. Both sides, in fact, have been guilty of military reductionism, of believing that arms will win the day.

It will not. What will help win the day—and this is the second challenge—is building and strengthening our peace constituencies. Our publics, our people—and not just our principals—must ache for peace so badly, they will vote with their feet, they will say “Enough!” to the hawks and warmongers in their ranks and in the leadership on both sides. They will turn the narrative of war into the narrative of peace.

Let me end with a footnote on the Vikings, those fearsome warriors from whom present-day Swedes, Danes and Norwegians are descended, including, I daresay, our hosts Espen, Knut and Ture; Aina, Ida, and Thomas. Part of it may be myth but the Vikings, it seems, were born to do battle. And yet—wonder of wonders—the Scandinavians now lead in global peacemaking—from South Africa to Palestine to Nepal.

If the Vikings could, over generations, turn their spears into pruning hooks and learn war no more, to borrow from the Bible, then, just maybe, can these talks signal the beginning of the end of our own intractable decades-old war?

On the other hand, late breaking news from the Philippines, about arrests and ambuscades, are a portent of alarms on the landmines that we must face here in Oslo.

But I believe with all my heart that we must find a way to negotiate these landmines together.

The fact is that the government is currently engaged in the peace process not with two, not with three, but with five armed groups. And two of these are in negotiations with government: the MILF and NDF. The speed with which the peace process with the MILF is proceeding enables even the most jaded among us to dare to hope that peace is indeed possible.

And, therefore, maybe I should end with a caveat: if we are not ready for peace right here, right now, then peace will find another way. A way that will not have to wait another twenty-five years, that will not have to wait for another five panels—to come into its own and bring peace and joy and laughter to our beloved land and our beloved people.

And so what we do, or do not do, in Oslo this February is, for us Filipinos, a matter of life and death. On this hopeful, and yet somber, note, I wish you a good day.#

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Campus journalists demand swift justice (CEGP-Mindanao Press Release)

Posted by Kartilya On 11:13 PM 0 comments

Campus journalists condemn the very slow delivery of justice to the victims of the Ampatuan Massacre, and challenge the Aquino administration to enforce its political will to expedite the prosecution of the perpetrators of the crime.

Members of the campus press believe that one year of injustice since the day of the massacre of 58 lives is an excessive display of irresponsibility by the government.

Paul Randy Gumanao, the Vice President for Mindanao of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), said that unless justice is served, the Arroyo and the Aquino regimes are accountable to the people.

“The impotent action of our government is a form of betrayal of our democracy. It is not enough that we just remember the most gruesome attack in media history. We need to act and rage because there is a continued culture of impunity in our country,” Gumanao said.

CEGP sees that the Amapatuan massacre case is not isolated from the piles of extra-judicial killings and human rights violations that the government must address urgently.

“Student journalists are always standing by the people. Therefore we believe that the people’s outrage, rather than the Ampatuans’ might, must be feared and attended by the government. What happened in Maguindanao was not solely an attack against the journalists or the lawyers. It was an arrogant attack against the Filipino people,” Gumanao added.

The international community also expressed sentiments against the massacre. New York-based Human Rights Watch delivered a report indicting former president Arroyo of aiding the Ampatuans gain political and miltary power. This report, according to CEGP, has to be considered by the Aquino administration.

“P-Noy has to show us what he meant by ‘daang matuwid’. Prosecute not only the Ampatuans but all the other individuals involved in nurturing a barbaric culture in the country,” Gumanao said.

CEGP, in its 79 years of existence as the longest-running and the widest organization of tertiary campus publications, said it will always support campaigns and actions that will benefit the majority. The group is also joining in various activities in the first year commemoration of the Amatuan massacre this November 23. ###

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