NDF: Legal Opinion: Can the NDFP political consultants temporarily released on bail be rearrested on the mere say so of the GRP President?

Propaganda statement posted to the National Democratic Front Website (Feb 7): Legal Opinion: Can the NDFP political consultants temporarily released on bail be rearrested on the mere say so of the GRP President?  
 NO.

1. The peace negotiations have not been properly terminated. According to the Joint Agreement on Safety & Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), the safety and immunity guarantees, and the peace negotiations itself, can only be terminated by written notice given by one party to the other and which would take effect only after 30 days from its receipt. No written notice has been given by the GRP to the NDFP to date.
   Hence, the peace negotiations have not been terminated.
2. Since the peace negotiations are not properly terminated and the JASIG — which was formally reaffirmed by the Parties in the Oslo Joint Statement of August 2016 – -still effective, the NDFP political consultants as such are “guaranteed free and unhindered passage in all areas in the Philippines, and in traveling to and from the Philippines in connection with the performance of their duties in the peace negotiations.”
   Furthermore, they are “guaranteed immunity from surveillance, harassment, search, arrest, detention, prosecution and interrogation or any other similar punitive actions due to any involvement or participation in the peace negotiations.”
   These immunity guarantees hold even after the JASIG & peace negotiations are effective precisely because it aim to protect them and encourage their participation or involvement in the peace process.
3. Only the courts which granted them temporary liberty by virtue of cash bails (some effective for 6 months since August 2016 while others rightfully till the duration of the peace negotiations) can act or order whether or not they can be validly rearrested, if at all, and not by the unilateral action of the PNP nor the AFP, much less even by the mere instructions of the GRP President.
   As a matter of fact, the extension of the effectivity of their bail to uniformly be “effective for the duration of the peace negotiations” have been explicitly agreed upon with the GRP even as early as the August 2016 Oslo talks and as expressly stipulated in the Rome Joint Statement of January 2017.
4. The 19 released political consultants and staff are still facing either trumped-up or defective charges of common crimes rather than political offenses in continuing violation of the Hernandez doctrine and of the CARHRIHL. As such, they are not convicted and are presumed innocent and cannot per se be rearrested by that fact alone or by operation of law.

Edre U. Olalia
NDFP Legal Consultant

https://www.ndfp.org/legal-opinion-can-ndfp-political-consultants-temporarily-released-bail-rearrested-mere-say-grp-president/