ARROYO AND RAZON PROCLAIM END OF GRP-NDFP PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

Press Statement
17 September 2009

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chief Political Consultant - National Democratic Front of the Philippines Negotiating Panel

In their most recent statements, the de facto president Gloria M. Arroyo and her OPAPP secretary Avelino Razon Jr. have paid lip service to peace negotiations between the Government of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) only to proclaim the end of peace negotiations and blame the NDFP for their own malicious action.

Despite the extremely hostile pronouncements of Arroyo and Razon, the NDFP Negotiating Panel continues to seek the resumption of formal talks in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and demand respect for and compliance with the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and all other bilateral agreements made since 1992.

At the same time, the NDFP is acutely aware of the fact that GRP is hell-bent on seeking the destruction and pacification of the revolutionary movement of the people mainly through the military force of Oplan Bantay Laya and secondarily through psywar pretenses at wishing peace negotiations. The GRP has shown its malevolent scheme in the following ways:

1. It does not want to give up its policy and practice of using false charges of common crimes to demonize, harass, abduct, detain, torture and murder suspected revolutionaries, social activists and the NDFP panelists, consultants, staffers and other JASIG-protected people. It is thus incapable of respecting and complying with the JASIG and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).

2. It wants to prevent the negotiation of social, economic and political reforms in accordance with the substantive agenda set forth by The Hague Joint Declaration and the Joint Agreement on the Sequence, Formation and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees. It does not wish the peace negotiations to be a way of addressing the roots of the armed conflict and laying the basis for a just and lasting peace through basic reforms.

3. It wants to front load the end of hostitilies, which is the fourth and last item in the agenda, so that it can actually destroy the peace negotiations as a way of bringing about basic reforms for the benefit of the people. It is obsessed with imposing the framework of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration simply to pacify the people and perpetuate the rotten ruling system of oppression and exploitation.

By all indications, the Arroyo regime does not want the resumption of formal talks in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, unless it realizes immediately its malevolent scheme and attain its malicious objectives against the Filipino people and their struggle for national liberation and democracy.