The National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas condemns the death of political prisoner Bernardo Ocasla from cardiac arrest last Nov. 28, saying this spurs opposition to a bilateral ceasefire between the GRP and NDFP. “Bernardo Ocasla is the fourth political prisoner from Eastern Visayas to die in detention in recent years, after Nila Montes in Eastern Samar, and Nenino Cabarles and Renato Abadiano in Samar,” said NDF-EV spokesperson Fr. Santiago “Ka Sanny” Salas. “We condole with his family who waited in vain for his release to right the injustice done to him because of the fabricated case linking him to the “mass grave” in Leyte, a psywar creation of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Ocasla’s death underscores the failed promise of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines to release all political prisoners in harmony with its peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.”
Fr. Salas said that the people feel betrayed because GRP President Rodrigo Duterte has not released the more than 400 political prisoners who still languish behind bars, including Eduardo Sarmiento, NDFP peace consultant for Eastern Visayas. “The GRP president has the power to release the political prisoners en masse, as Corazon Aquino did in 1986. Why are they being made to pass through the eye of a needle as Duterte and his officials insist? Is this not another injustice to political prisoners who who were sent to jail like common criminals, such as Bernabe Ocasla who spent a decade in prison for a nonexistent crime, and Eduardo Sarmiento who was sentenced to life imprisonment for a grenade he wasn’t carrying.”
The NDF-EV spokesperson added that the sufferings of the political prisoners and continuing AFP military operations in Samar and Leyte are compelling grounds to oppose a bilateral ceasefire between the NDFP and GRP. “If the GRP cannot fulfill a relatively minor commitment such as releasing political prisoners, it has no right to make heavier demands such as a bilateral ceasefire with the NDFP. Furthermore, by carrying out military operations thinly disguised as “peace and development,” the AFP leaves the New People’s Army no choice but to actively defend themselves and the people. There is no sense in talking about a bilateral ceasefire when political prisoners are dying and the AFP is out of control. After all, the peace talks can continue even without a bilateral ceasefire, and if genuine changes remain opaque under the Duterte administration, the people’s war and the democratic mass struggles for a just and lasting peace are bound to intensify.”#
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