Topic: amnesty

One week after he was elected president, I sent Fidel Agcaoili to confer with him and he promised to release all political prisoners listed by the NDFP. Soon thereafter, he offered to appoint to his cabinet four CPP representatives to be in charge of the departments of labor and employment, agrarian reform, environment and natural resources and social welfare and development.

He deliberately reneged on his promise to amnesty and release all political prisoners. He kept on terminating the peace negotiations (three times!) by raising to the press complaints which he should have submitted through his panel to the Joint Monitoring Committee in the same manner that the NDFP had submitted to this body bigger and more serious complaints against the continuance of AFP, PNP and CAFGU offensives during periods of ceasefire. The NDFP complaints involved AFP bombing of communities and mass murder of children, women and elderly people.

Of course, when I first read the report on Duterte´s interview with Mindanews I had some misgivings that he did not mean what he said because of his notoriety for saying one thing and then saying the opposite within a short period and also because of his arrogance and anger in setting some absurd preconditions, like the CPP and NPA humbling themselves and capitulating to his tyrannical rule

…the two negotiating panels were about to make the biggest advance in the peace process by finalizing and initialing the drafts of the general amnesty to release all the political prisoners listed by the NDFP, Part I Agrarian Reform and Rural Development and Part II National Industrialization and Economic Development of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) and the Coordinated Unilateral Ceasefires (as prelude to a bilateral ceasefire agreement)…

The notoriety of Duterte as the No. 1 terrorist and butcher of the Filipino people is already well-established and secure on the basis of the mass murder of more than 14,000 suspected users and pushers of illegal drugs in impoverished communities, the destruction of Marawi and death of many of its citizens and the growing number of assassinations of legal leaders and activists of organizations of workers, peasants, fishermen, youth, women, indigenous people, church people and advocates of human rights and peace.

By Emily Rauhala February 26 MANILA — Once, when Rodrigo Duterte got to talking about his anti-drug campaign, he mused about murdering his children. If his son used…

Sison lamented that before Duterte’s diatribe, the government and the rebel negotiating panels had already spent several months of hard work in unilateral and bilateral meetings and were “ready to do a little polishing of common drafts” on Nov. 22 and 23 in Utretch for finalization in the slated fifth round of formal talks in Oslo, Norway on Nov. 25 to 27.

The GRP AND NDFP negotiating panels were so happy and confident that they would be able to initial the CASER and the agreements on the general amnesty and release of all political prisoners and the coordinated unilateral ceasefires at the closing session of the fifth round of formal talks and formally sign all these at the closing ceremony of the sixth round in January 2018,” Sison said.

Jose Ma. Sison, the NDFP chief political consultant in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, has provided a broader and deeper view of Duterte’s unraveling. “The people must realize,” he recently remarked, “that Duterte is well on the way to establishing his fascist dictatorship.” The latter’s proclamation of martial law in Mindanao in May and its extension till the end of this year, he warned, is in preparation for a nationwide martial law.

According to Sison in his statement entitled, “How Duterte Sabotaged the GRP-NDFP Peace Process,” the negotiating panels were looking forward to initializing the drafts, including the comprehensive agreement on social economic reforms, when Duterte started on November 18 to criticize the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA), and the NDF.

“He also ranted against the entire peace process until November 23, when he made his Proclamation No. 360, terminating the peace negotiations,” Sison noted.

The GRP AND NDFP Negotiating Panels were so happy and confident that they would be able to initial the CASER and the agreements on the general amnesty and release of all political prisoners and the coordinated unilateral ceasefires at the closing session of the fifth round of formal talks and formally sign all of these at the closing ceremony of the sixth round in January 2018.