Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts

Vol. IV,  No. 28                           August 15 - 21, 2004                      Quezon City, Philippines


 





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With the imminent release of two NPA captives
NDFP Asks Release of 15 Political Prisoners

With the imminent release of two prisoners of war (POWs) held by the New People’s Army (NPA) this week, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) expects the Arroyo government to reciprocate by releasing at least 15 political prisoners. The chair of the NDFP negotiating panel, Luis Jalandoni, said although the release of the 15 political prisoners is not a precondition to the two POWs’ release his panel still expects the government side to honor its commitment to the Oslo Joint Statement signed last April 3.

By Dabet Castañeda
With a report by Karl Ombion in Bacolod
Bulatlat

NDFP panel chairman Luis Jalandoni delivers a talk as wife Coni Ledesma sits nearby 
Photo by Karl Ombion

With the imminent release of two prisoners of war (POWs) held by the Marxist New People’s Army (NPA) this week, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) expects the Arroyo government to reciprocate by releasing at least 15 political prisoners.

Talking to Bulatlat over the weekend, the chair of the NDFP negotiating panel, Luis Jalandoni, said although the release of the 15 political prisoners is not a precondition to the two POWs’ release his panel still expects the government side to honor its commitment to the Oslo Joint Statement signed last April 3.

The two POWs, Lt. Ronaldo “Butch” Fidelino and Pfc. Ronel Nemeño, were captured by NPA guerrillas in a gunbattle Feb. 29 in Barangay (village) Bataan, Tinambac town, in the province of Camarines Sur, south of Manila.

Jalandoni said the two Army soldiers would have been set free earlier had not top officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) rejected NPA demands for the suspension of military operations and suspension of police operations (SOMO/SOPO) in the province for their safe release.

The release of the two POWs has been worked out by both panels even as the peace talks, set to resume Aug. 24, broke down. The NDFP has canceled the talks owing to what it said was government’s refusal to ask the U.S. government to remove the names of its senior political consultant, Jose Maria Sison, as well as the Communist Party of the Philippines and NPA from its “foreign terrorist” list.

The U.S. state department renewed the list, made two years ago, second week of this August. Sison accused the U.S. government of sabotaging the peace talks.

Jalandoni insisted that “The GRP should take a stand against the terrorist listing.” 

However, in a telephone interview with Bulatlat, Bello denied making any commitment to help remove the CPP-NPA and Prof. Sison from the U.S. “terrorist list.” “What we agreed upon was that the GRP shall make a statement addressed to the U.S. government and the European Union to help the peace process by addressing the delisting of CPP-NPA and Prof. Sison from the terrorist list,” he said.

“Our only commitment is to make the request,” he added. 

The GRP has in fact referred this to the justice department and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the government agencies, he explained, that should act upon these matters.

Premature

The GRP panel chair called the NDFP’s postponement of the talks as premature.  “If they (the NDFP) think that we have not done our work, we have until August 23 to fulfill our obligations. We should be the one asking for additional time,” Bello said.

Under the same Oslo Joint Statement, the GRP promised to release 32 political prisoners. But Maria Hilao-Enqiruez, secretary general of the human rights alliance Karapatan told Bulatlat that based on their record only 18 political prisoners have been released: 11, as a result of the negotiations, while seven others as a result of the dismissal of their cases.

Fourteen or 15 political prisoners, said Hilao-Enriquez, remain imprisoned in various detention centers. Among them are six farmers from the town of Mamburao, Mindoro Occidental, an island province west of Manila, who remain held at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig town, Rizal, Metro Manila.

In all, there are 248 political prisoners nationwide, including five women and 10 minors. Sixteen of the political prisoners should have been released based on orders signed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo since 2001. They remain in jail to this day, Hilao-Enriquez said.

The NDFP, said Jalandoni, has strongly demanded the release of political prisoners.

As far as Bello is concerned however, 130 of 148 political prisoners have been released since 2001. “There’s a very high possibility that the remaining 18 will be released soon,” he added.

One of the women prisoners, Julia Cagadas, 44, is charged with murder and multiple murder and is now detained at the Bukidnon Provincial and Rehabilitation Center in southern Philippines. Her co-accused, nursing mother Zenaida Llesis was released last May following a hunger strike and demands by human rights groups.

Urgent medical treatment

But Cagadas herself needs urgent medical treatment after being diagnosed as having colloid nodules with cystic degeneration in the throat and a cyst in the breast. She went under the knife in May at the Bukidnon provincial hospital through the assistance of Karapatan, the multi-sectoral group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance) and the party-list group Bayan Muna (People First).

One of the few detainees with rebellion cases, Ressel Quininon is now detained at the town jail of Tangub, Cagayan de Oro province, also in southern Philippines.  Quininon was only 18 when arrested on July 8, 2002.  Her co-accused, Maribel Barsenal, was released on May 4. 

The latest woman to be detained is Cristeta Raza who was arrested on April 2 and is now held at the Tuguegarao town jail in Cagayan province, northern Philippines.  

Ten minors remain in detention. Six of them – suspected members of the bandit Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) – are at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig. Three are in Bicol while one is in Davao.

Two sick and elderly citizens are still detained in separate detention cells although they have been ordered released since 2001 for humanitarian reasons.  One of them, Modesto Tobias, a farmer from Masbate province, has been detained for 15 years while Hadji Ahmad Upao, 75, was accused of being a member of the ASG. 

Upao’s medical records show, however, that he is incapable of committing such acts as he had been diagnosed with heart ailment and arthritis and other malfunctions such as eye and ear defect due to old age.

Compensation

Although the GRP has also promised to compensate the 10,000 victims of martial rule who won a class action suit against the Marcos Estate in 1994, the money allocated for the compensation has been transferred from a Trust Fund of the Philippine National Bank to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP or Central Bank of the Philippines) and the Land Bank of the Philippines.  Technically, this would mean that the money is now in the coffers of the Office of the President. 

Hilao-Enriquez, who is also secretary general of the Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya (Selda or Society of Ex-Detainees Against Detention and for Amnesty), said it is possible the funds earmarked for the Marcos victims might have been used for the presidential campaign of Arroyo in the May 2004 elections.

Bello denied the speculations, saying that the PhP8 billion allocated for the compensation of the victims will be released after an appropriate law is passed by Congress and signed by the President. 

Last year, Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo filed a bill in the 12th Congress seeking the allocation of funds for the martial law victim’s indemnification. The bill was passed in the House but the entire Congress adjourned last February without the Senate counterpart bill being acted upon.

Ocampo is set to refile the bill in the 13th Congress.

Homecoming

In Bacolod City, Jalandoni clarified that in the history of the peace negotiations it is the first time that the NDFP negotiators took the first move in postponing the talks. He told Bulatlat that for the last 12 years that the talks have been on and off, it has always been the GRP who initiated a recess, a suspension or termination. 

The GRP, he said, de facto terminated the negotiations when ousted President Joseph E. Estrada signed the Visiting Forced Agreement (VFA) in 1998 which paved the way for the U.S.’ renewed war exercises in the country.  It also terminated the talks in 2001 when the NPA executed intelligence officer-turned politician Rodolfo Aguinaldo, said to be a notorious human rights violator. 

He added that in a timeline study by the NDFP, more than nine years have been wasted due to suspensions and indefinite recesses by the GRP. 

Jalandoni said the postponement of the August peace talks should give ample time for the GPP to fulfill its obligations. He qualified however that the postponement may lead to the collapse of the talks if the Arroyo government does not make effective measures on the issues agreed upon in the last two rounds of talks.

The Jalandonis at home with their fellow Negrenses
Photo by Karl Ombion

Jalandoni arrived here in Bacolod Aug. 12 with his wife-comrade, Coni Ledesma, also a member of the NDFP peace negotiating panel.  Both belong to landed families in the city of Silay in northern Negros.  Jalandoni is a former diocesan priest and the first director of the Bacolod Diocese Social Action Center while Ledesma is a former nun who joined the revolutionary underground movement in the 1970s.

Both have been in exile in The Netherlands since the mid-1970s.

Jalandoni also said that the release of the POWs in Camarines Sur is part of the NDFP’s commitment to adhere to the Geneva Conventions and the Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) signed by both sides in 1998. It is also in response to the request of the families of the two Army soldiers and the call from international organizations such as the International Convention of the Red Cross (ICRC). Bulatlat

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