NDF: Aquino distorts facts on peace talks with the NDFP

Propaganda statement posted to the National Democratic Front Website (May 25): Aquino distorts facts on peace talks with the NDFP

Luis G. Jalandoni
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiatiang Panel

Out-going President Benigno S. Aquino III distorts the facts in saying that it was not his regime but the NDFP that walked out of the peace talks.

On February 26, 2013 when both sides were discussing the proposed truce and cooperation between the Aquino government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, Aquino’s delegation of special representatives, led by his Political Adviser walked out of the negotiations. Whereafter, Norwegian Special Envoy Ture Lundh called him and Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines to a sidebar meeting. Ambassador Lundh proposed a reconvening after the GPH delegation walk-out.

In a second side bar meeting, Prof. Sison informed the GPH Political Adviser and Ambassador Lundh that his delegation was willing to reconvene. But the GPH Political Adviser said he had to leave the meeting and consult his principal. Ambassador Lundh likewise said he had to consult his principal. In that manner, the meeting to discuss the Special Track to negotiate truce and cooperation between the Aquino regime and the NDFP broke off.

The Special Track was meant by Prof. Sison and the NDFP to supplement and reinforce, not eliminate, the regular track that would continue the negotiations on social and economic reforms, political and constitutional reforms and end of hostilities, after the completion of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.

Prior to this walk-out by the Aquino regime’s delegation, President Aquino’s Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Secretary Teresita Deles and GPH Negotiating Panel Chairperson Alexander Padilla sabotaged the GPH-NDFP peace negotiations. On February 15, 2011 they declared the Framework Agreement of the peace negotiations, The Hague Joint Declaration “a document of perpetual division”. Subsequently, Alexander Padilla declared the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), which guarantees safety and immunity to all participants in the peace negotiations, from both Parties, “inoperative” and thereby sought to justify the illegal detention of NDFP consultants.

Furthermore, Alexander Padilla, during the negotiations on February 25, 2013, insisted that “land reform and national industrialization” are “ideologically charged concepts” and therefore not acceptable to the GPH.

Secretary Deles and Padilla refused to respect and comply with the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). Instead of releasing political prisoners, the Aquino regime illegally arrested hundreds more, ballooning the number to more than 500. Padilla declared that the CARHRIHL was an NDFP propaganda document.

In a final effort to achieve some kind of peace agreement with the Aquino regime, the NDFP worked with a GPH delegation led by former Agrarian Reform Secretary, Hernani Braganza to forge a Draft peace agreement, soon after the Mamasapano fiasco, but the group of Mr. Braganza was rebuffed by Secretary Deles and President Aquino.

With all these facts, among others that can be cited, how can outgoing President Aquino, say that it was not his regime, but the NDFP that walked out of the peace talks? The Aquino regime has consistently sabotaged the peace negotiations and became obsessed with trying to destroy the revolutionary movement of the people by military force and psywar under Oplan Bayanihan.

http://www.ndfp.org/aquino-distorts-facts-peace-talks-ndfp/