Failure to indemnify class suit plaintiffs vs Marcos a ground to terminate talks, NDF warns

From InterAksyon (Oct 1): Failure to indemnify class suit plaintiffs vs Marcos a ground to terminate talks, NDF warns



File photo of NDF negotiating panel head Luis Jalandoni

Communist rebels warned that government’s failure to recognize and indemnify the original 9,539 class suit and 24 direct action plaintiffs who filed and won a landmark case for human rights violations committed during the Marcos dictatorship constitutes “just cause” for terminating peace negotiations.

The warning issued by Luis Jalandoni, who heads the negotiating panel of the National Democratic Front, followed complaints earlier this month by the human rights group Samahan ng Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto or SELDA.

SELDA had accused the Human Rights Victims Claims Board of “continuously refusing to state categorically that it recognizes as victims the 9,539 members of the class suit against former President Marcos in 1986” even if the plaintiffs as well as the 24 direct action plaintiffs “have been recognized and verified by the US Federal Court in Hawaii,” which tried the case and ruled against the dictator’s estate.

The HRVCB, headed by retired police general Lina Sarmiento, was created through Republic Act 10386, or the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013.

The Claims Board set a six-month period, from May 12 to November 1 this year, for some 20,000 expected claimants to apply for compensation. However, recent reports have said only a fraction of that number have filed their claims amid complaints from claimants, many of them elderly and ailing, that the application process is too difficult for them.

SELDA chair Marie Hilao-Enriquez, a victim of the dictatorship and one of those who sued the Marcos estate, claimed the “process of accepting applications is not aimed at recognizing the most number of martial law victims” and also did not encourage victims to file their claims for compensation.

She added that claimants “are treated like persons who are only after money, of a very small amount that can never make up for their sacrifices and sufferings as victims. They are after justice and reparation.”

Worse, she said, “The HRVCB itself is violating the law. Conclusive presumption becomes disputable presumption in their denial to recognize the victims who have time and again proved they suffered abuses and rights violations under the Marcos dictatorship.”

Jalandoni, in a statement, said Section 17 of RA 10368 says: “The claimants in the class suit and direct action plaintiffs in the Human Rights Litigation Against the Estate of Ferdinand E. Marcos (MDL No. 840, CA No. 88-0390) in the US Federal District Court of Honolulu, Hawaii wherein a favorable judgment has been rendered, shall be extended the conclusive presumption that they are HRVVs (human rights violations victims)...”

However, he said, the HRVCB, particularly Sarmiento, had failed to “secure a court certified copy of the original list of 9,539 class suit members and 24 direct action plaintiffs,” leading to “so much confusion, aggravation and problems for the human rights victims.”

The NDF chief negotiator stressed that compensation for the victims of the dictatorship is a central condition of the peace talks, “reflected in Article 5 of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law” that the NDF and government signed in 1998.

Article 5 states that, “The Parties hereby respect and support the rights of the victims of human rights violations during the Marcos regime taking into consideration the final judgment of the United States Federal Court System in the Human Rights Litigation Against Marcos, Senate Resolution 1640, Swiss Supreme Court Decision of 10 December 1997; and pertinent provisions of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture.”

It also commits the government to “execute with the duly authorized representatives of the victims a written instrument to implement this Article and guide the satisfaction of the claims of said victims, with regard to the amount and mode of compensation, which shall be the most direct and quickest possible to every victim or heir…”

The issue of compensation, he added, “is also manifested in Number 6 of the Oslo Joint Statement signed on 14 February 2004 by the GRP and NDFP and attested to by the Royal Norwegian Government as Third Party Facilitator, as well as in Number 5 of the Second Oslo Joint Statement signed on 3 April 2004 by the two Parties and attested to by the Royal Norwegian Government as Third Party Facilitator.”

He said the continued refusal to recognize the class suit and direct action plaintiffs against the Marcoses would not only violate the CARHRIHL and the Oslo Joint Statements but RA 10368 itself, and “will destroy the peace negotiations.”

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/96522/failure-to-indemnify-class-suit-plaintiffs-vs-marcos-a-ground-to-terminate-talks-ndf-warns