Reds now ready to start new talks, says Belmonte

From the Manila Standard Today (Jul 11): Reds now ready to start new talks, says Belmonte
 

HOUSE Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. said Friday the communist leaders living in exile in Utrecht had said they were ready to resume informal peace talks with the government, but the government did not give any commitment.

He said Jose Maria Sison and Luis Jalandoni had agreed to the meeting he had sought, and that they also wanted to tap him as the “bridge” between the communists and the government.

The formal peace talks between the government and the NDF were suspended in June 2011.

“Yes, they were ready to resume informal talks. I just listened,” Belmonte told The Standard.

“I just listened. There were no commitments on my part, but it was a very informative dinner with Joma and Jalandoni.”

Belmonte said Sison and Jalandoni did not impose “preconditions” to what he called an “initiative” to get the stalled peace talks with the rebels back on track.

He said he would report to President Benigno Aquino III the “informative dinner” that he had with the communist leaders.

He said he had sought the meeting with Sison, Jalandoni and Ruth de Leon Zumel in a Japanese restaurant in Amsterdam at 6 pm on July 9 while he was in The Netherlands.

Belmonte is with the 35-member delegation to The Hague, where the Philippines is arguing its case against China over their dispute in the West Philippine Sea.

Sison is the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines and now chief political consultant of the communist National Democratic Front.

Jalandoni heads the NDF’s peace negotiating panel, and Zumel, the widow of the late NDF officer Antonio Zumel, heads the NDF secretariat.

 “No preconditions. I will mention it to the President,” Belmonte said.

 “I wanted to meet them while I was here (The Netherlands] and it was arranged while l was in Manila with my friend’s widow Ruth Zumel. It was purely bridge-building, but it was a very informative dinner with Joma and Jalandoni.”

Belmonte was accompanied by House Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II, Davao City Rep. and appropriations committee chairman Isidro Ungab, and Romblon Rep. and Eleandro Jesus Madrona in the meeting.

Edre Olalia, the NDF’s legal counsel, helped arrange the meeting.

Olalia confirmed that the meeting pushed through, but that he was not privy to what was discussed since he was in Manila.

The venue of the meeting is about an hour’s drive from The Hague, the Dutch capital, where Belmonte attended the first round of the oral arguments before the United Nations Arbitral Tribunal on the Philippines’ case against China’s incursion into the disputed territories in the West Philippine Sea.

The Philippines was represented by a top-level team led by Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario and Solicitor General Florin Hilbay.

An earlier report quoted Sison as saying he supported the Philippines’ legal case against China’s “aggressive acts” in the West Philippine Sea.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2015/07/11/reds-now-ready-to-start-new-talks-says-belmonte/