Aquino Sabotages and Destroys Preparations for Resumption of Formal Talks in GPH-NDFP Peace Negotiations

GPH President Aquino destroys the chances for resumption of peace negotiations between his lame-duck administration and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Aquino’s act of sabotage comes at a time when the NDFP was undertaking steps towards a possible resumption of formal peace tealks.

The NDFP was doing so in response to calls of peasants and workers to work for genuine land reform and national industrialization in the face of massive poverty, landlessness and spiralling prices of basic commondities. The NDFP  was also responding to the efforts of peace advocates and the Royal Norwegian Government striving for serious peace negotiations between the Aquino administration and the NDFP.

However, in an interview with Bombo Radyo published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on May 15, 2015, GPH President Benigno S. Aquino III declared his intention not to comply with existing peace agreements with the NDFP and avoid substantive negotiations.

Furthermore, he wilfully violates the existing agreements, the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). About five hundred political prisoners are charged with common crimes in violation of the Hernandez political offense doctrine and the CARHRIHL Sixteen NDFP Consultants are detained in gross violation of the JASIG.

The Aquino regime further threatens to arrest NDFP Consultants in relation to the false and ridiculous multiple murder charges in the Hilongos case.

The NDFP vigorously condemns all these acts of Benigno S. Aquino III inimical to serious peace negotiations, just as the NDFP  joins the broad masses in holding him accountable for massive corruption, utter insensitivity to the people’s suffering, servility to the US and other anti-people actions.

LUIS G. JALANDONI

Chairperson, Negotiating Panel