Statement by Prof. Jose Maria Sison
NDFP Chief Political Consutant
November 9, 2018
In case of breakdown or even termination of peace negotiations, the safety and immunity guarantees in the Joint Agreement on Safety and immunity Guarantees (JASIG) for negotiators, consultants and resource persons of both the GRP and the NDFP have continuing reciprocal effect, that they do not become criminally liable for participating in the peace negotiations.
It is barbaric practice for any side to consider as combatant peace emissaries, negotiators, consultants and resource person of the other side and subject them to surveillance, harassment, frame up, arrest, detention and killing.
The CPP, NPA and NDF have always respected the safety and immunity guarantees for the negotiating personnel, negotiators, consultants, resource persons and emissaries of the GRP even in periods of breakdown or even termination of peace negotiations.
It is absolutely wrong for the GRP military and police personnel to plant an entire armory (not just one but several firearms, plenty of ammo and explosives) and make Vicente Ladlad, NDFP consultant, appear as a combatant despite his aging and sickly condition, with chronic asthma deteriorated to emphysema.
The GRP military and police themselves brought into the house of the elderly Villamor couple the bags of weapons used to frame up Vicente Ladlad. The Duterte regime should stop playing a dirty war and victimizing unarmed elderly people.
Vicente Ladlad was not able to attend a recent court hearing because of his sickly condition and was in the process of informing his lawyer and asking the court through counsel to take into account his ill health.
There are already three NDF personnel (one member of the Reciprocal Working Committee on Political and Constitutional Reforms and two members of the Reciprocal Committee on Social and Economic Reforms) who have suffered the same malicious policy of the Duterte regime to flout and violate continuing and reciprocal safety and immunity guarantees under JASIG. These are Raffy Baylosis, Adelberto Silva and Vicente Ladlad.
The arrest of the three NDFP personnel threaten all NDFP peace negotiators, consultants, resource persons and experts who have in good faith participated in the peace negotiations. Why is Duterte threatening them with punitive actions and forcing them to abandon their legal existence?
It is obvious that he is leaving no space for the possible resumption of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations in order to scapegoat the CPP, NPA and NDFP as “terrorists” and give him the pretext to establish a fascist dictatorship through martial law and charter change for a bogus federalism, in which he concentrates all powers in his hands and handpicks the warlords and political dynasties as his regional agents.###
