NDF to make EDCA an issue if peace talks resume

From InterAksyon (May 4): NDF to make EDCA an issue if peace talks resume

Communist rebels intend to bring up the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement as a major issue “at the first opportunity, if there should be informal or formal talks with the Aquino regime.”

Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the National Democratic Front’s peace negotiating committee, said Jose Ma. Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, told a forum in Hong Kong on Sunday that the EDCA, which allows increased US military presence in the country and the use of Philippine facilities by the Americans, is “a flagrant violation of Philippine sovereignty and territorial integrity” that “tramples on a guiding principle of the peace negotiations as declared in The Hague Joint Declaration.”

“The EDCA is a treasonous agreement. It is worse than the Visiting Forces Agreement.” Sison said, according to Jalandoni.

“The EDCA makes the entire Philippines an unsinkable aircraft carrier of the US posing challenges to neighboring countries," he added.

Peace talks between the communists and the government have been stalled since 2011, with the main bone of contention being the continued detention of captured rebels the NDF says are consultants of its peace panel and therefore, protected from arrest and prosecution under the Joint Agreement on Immunity and Security Guarantees.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/86042/ndf-to-make-edca-an-issue-if-peace-talks-resume