NDF: How the GPH delegation scuttled the 25-26 February 2013 Amsterdam Meetin

Posted to the National Democratic Front Philippines (NDFP) Website (Mar 04): How the GPH delegation scuttled the 25-26 February 2013 Amsterdam Meeting

Report of the NDFP Delegation to the NDFP National Council
04 March 2013

Introduction

Since 2005, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) has proposed to the Government of the Philippines (GRP or GPH) truce and alliance based on a general declaration of common intent in response to recurrent demands of the latter for an indefinite and prolonged ceasefire without any clear basis, and with the obvious objective of obtaining the pacification and capitulation of the revolutionary forces of the Filipino people represented by the NDFP.

Since early 2011, the NDFP has reiterated to the GPH the offer of truce and alliance and has proposed that this can be worked out on a special track distinct from the regular track of the already agreed substantive agenda of the GPH and NDFP Negotiating Panels, which are required to discuss the end of hostilities and redisposition of forces only after the approval of the comprehensive agreements on social and economic reforms and political and constitutional reforms.

The NDFP proposal for the special track was addressed directly to the GPH President Benigno S. Aquino III and it carried a brief outline of points for inclusion in a general declaration that stipulated truce and alliance. The GPH President responded through his political adviser Secretary Ronald Llamas that the proposed points were doable. However, instead of considering truce and alliance, what the GPH President sent to the NDFP was a short message harping on the line that ceasefire is good for the people and but said nothing about the substantive points for agreement.

Despite intermittent meetings between NDFP Chief Political Consultant Prof. Jose Maria Sison and Secretary Llamas for two years, the GPH side has never presented any written point by point response to the 2011 draft of the basic points of the NDFP and to the NDFP elaboration of these points that the GPH through Secretary Llamas requested. The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) under Secretary Teresita Q. Deles has been reported only to have formulated adverse reactions to the points presented by the NDFP.

In November 2012 in Amsterdam, Secretary Llamas proposed to NDFP Chief Political Consultant Prof. Sison, in the presence of Royal Norwegian Government (RNG) Special Envoy Ture Lundh, that a meeting of the GPH President and Prof. Sison as founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) be held in Hanoi City in early 2013, like the Aquino-Murad meeting in Tokyo the previous year, in order to stimulate the forging of a general or common declaration for effecting truce and cooperation.

Secretary Llamas described the proposed Aquino-Sison meeting as the “first historic moment”. He also promised that NDFP consultant Alan Jazmines and other JASIG-protected prisoners would be released from prison before the said moment and that Jazmines would be present at the GPH-NDFP meeting in Hanoi City. The RNG facilitator would be the host.

The NDFP chief political consultant made clear to both Secretary Llamas and Ambassador Lundh that the most that could be done before the proposed “first historic moment” was to craft the basic points of the general declaration for inclusion in the press communiqué to be issued in Hanoi. Thenceforth, the general declaration would be negotiated for several months because of the diametrically opposite positions of the GPH and NDFP. While the NDFP seeks truce and alliance, the GPH wants ceasefire within GPH constitutional and legal processes.

In the presence of RNG special envoy Ture Lundh, Secretary Llamas and the NDFP chief political consultant Prof. Jose Maria Sison agreed that special teams of the GPH and NDFP would meet on 17 and 18 December 2012 at the RNG embassy in The Hague to prepare for the “first historic moment”. Contrary to expectations, the GPH President did not authorize a GPH special team for the special track but sent only a delegation of special representatives with a limited mandate under vetting by the OPAPP. Part I below is a report of what transpired........

[Go to Website below for full report]

http://www.ndfp.net/joom15/index.php/peace-talks-mainmenu-75/analyses--articles-mainmenu-78/1663-aquino-government-scuttles-amsterdam-peace-meeting.html