GPH negotiating panel chairperson Padilla gives notice
of no formal talks next month*
Fidel Agcaoili
Spokesperson,
NDFP Negotiating Panel
20 August 2011
As spokesperson of the Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), I am obliged to answer the press statements of Alex Padilla of the Negotiating Panel of the Government of the Philippines(GDP) which reveal publicly the contents of his letter to the NDFP Negotiating Panel Chairperson Luis Jalandoni dated 19 August 2011. In due time, the latter shall send his reply.
In said letter, Padilla gives notice to Jalandoni that there will be no formal talks of the panels in Oslo next month and indefinitely until the reciprocal working committees on CASER shall have completed the common tentative agreement on social and economic reforms. He also declares that before then, there shall be no formal talks between the panels about issues involving the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), including the reconstruction of the list of DI holders under JASIG.
He insists that the GPH has no obligation under JASIG or under the Oslo Joint Statements of 2011 to release most or all of the JASIG-protected persons before what should have been the second round of formal talks last June or next September and no NDFP personnel shall enjoy the protection of JASIG until formal talks are made possible by the completion of the common tentative agreement on social and economic forms.
The GPH position expressed in writing by Padilla brazenly violates the JASIG and the entire peace process and alerts the NDFP that the GPH is already scuttling the peace negotiations. We also take notice that Padilla has scorned the NDFP offer of alliance and truce and is shooting it down in a press statement today.
Now, we fully understand why Padilla has been issuing press releases every day like an extremely irresponsible and provocative psywar agent of the reactionary armed forces and not as a negotiator with some amount of dignity and political sense.
We thank him for unwittingly justifying the determination of the armed revolutionary movement to defend the people against worsening exploitation and oppression and the escalating campaigns of military suppression, which are propagandized by the US-directed Aquino regime as peace and development operations.
* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/gph-negotiating-panel-chairperson.html
