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NDFP offers help to fight terrorists anew

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The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) reiterated its previous declaration that it stands firmly with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) in opposing and fighting terrorism in the country.

In a statement, NDFP Negotiating Panel chairperson Fidel Agcaoil said it is willing to fight terrorist groups as well as acts of terrorism by the Maute, Abu Sayyaf and Ansar Al Khalifah Philippines (AKP) in parts of Mindanao, particularly in and around Marawi City where fighting has been raging for nearly four weeks already.

“As a matter of fundamental principle and constant policy, we condemn and combat terrorism. By terrorism, we mean actions that intimidate, terrorize, harm and murder civilians solely or mainly and in violation of human rights and international humanitarian law,” the NDFP said.

The NDFP said the three bands are “terrorist groups linked to local reactionary forces, affiliated with ISIS and supported by US-CIA and other foreign entities.”

The NDFP also said it has already instructed its allied organization, the Moro Resistance and Liberation Organization (MRLO), inside Marawi City to assume home defense tasks against the Maute, Abu Sayyaf and AKP groups.

It added the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has also directed units of the New People’s Army (NPA) close to Marawi City to redeploy for the purpose of mopping up, holding and blocking operations, if necessary.

“The NDFP is ready to discuss and agree in detail with the GRP on how ceasefire, coordination and cooperation can be achieved in Marawi City by both forces unilaterally keeping safe distances between each other,” it said.

The NDFP said it has recommended to the CPP to order all other NPA units in Mindanao to refrain from carrying out offensive operations against the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and Philippine National Police (PNP) to enable all forces to concentrate against the three terror groups.

It added that the GRP must also order the AFP and PNP to refrain from carrying out offensive operations against the NPA and its adjunct people’s militia to give chance for the coordination and cooperation to work against the terror groups.

The NDFP panel first offered help in fighting the Maute and Abu Sayyaf in Marawi last June 1,  a week after fighting broke out in the besieged city.

President Rodrigo Duterte said the NDFP’s proposal was a sign of goodwill but turned down the offer.

In offering to help fight the terror groups, the NDFP said it wants to allow the affected communities to return to normalcy as soon as possible.

“The rights and interests of the masses and communities must be respected and promoted,” it said, urging the GRP to ensure that the level of counteraction against terrorism, as well as the nature, scope and duration must be appropriate and proportional to the degree of danger, threat and/or harm and mayhem being committed by the terrorist groups in Marawi City.

“Upon the success of the counter-terrorist measures, these must cease in order to allow normalcy and full respect for human rights as soon as possible,” the NDFP said.

Yesterday, Lt. Col. Emmanuel Garcia, commander of the 4th Civil Relations Group told reporters the number of deaths has risen to 310, including government troops, terrorists and civilians.

GRP Department of Health secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial for her part said there are 218,551 people displaced by the fighting but only about 20,000 of them are staying in evacuation centers. # (Raymund B. Villanueva/Featured Image by Jaja Necosia-The Breakaway Media)

 

AFP blocks humanitarian aid to Marawi evacuees

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A humanitarian mission with 400 relief packs for evacuees was denied entry to Marawi City today by the military, its leaders announced.

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan spokesperson and former Bayan Muna representative Teddy Casiño said an Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) checkpoint at the entrance to the city proper stopped the National Interfaith Humanitarian Mission at around 8:45 today.

“We were told to turn back because the relief goods were supposedly not needed by the evacuees anymore,” Casiño said.

The mission, principally organized by the Rural Missionaries of the Philippines-Northern Mindanao Region, was scheduled to distribute more relief packs to civilian evacuees and meet with local government officials to know what other forms of assistance was needed in the war-torn city, he said.

Gabriela Women’s Party representative Arlene Brosas was among the mission participants.

Casiño said prior permission had been secured from Marawi local government officials and the military ground command through a Captain Clint Antipala of the Philippine Army.

He explained Marawi officials assured them beforehand relief packs are needed in the evacuation sites in the city.

“Local government officials later told us that under martial law, it was the military that had the final say on such matters,” Casiño said.

“Essentially, the military prevented humanitarian aid from reaching the displaced families in Marawi City.  This is unacceptable,” Casiño said.

He added that they are still seeking an explanation on the AFP’s decision. # (Raymund B. Villanueva/Photos courtesy of the National Interfaith Humanitarian Mission)

 

Relief packs of food and medicine ordered to turn back by the military at the entrance to Marawi City.

Groups commemorate Independence Day with calls for respect of human rights

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Sectoral groups gathered at the Bonifacio Shrine in Manila yesterday to commemorate the Philippines’ 119th Independence Day and to call for peace and respect for human rights.

The National Day of Prayer and Action for Peace and Human Rights event was part of the day-long action denouncing the killings and other human rights violations under the Rodrigo Duterte government.

The groups called for the lifting of martial law in Mindanao, saying it will only worsen extrajudicial killings and the curtailment of civil and political rights.

Military rule is not a solution to the ongoing conflict against the Maute group in Mindanao, the groups said.

The protesters also condemned ongoing aerial bombings by the Philippine military in Marawi they said only result in wanton destruction of properties and endangerment of civilians trapped in the besieged city.

In a unity statement, the groups called for the continuation of the peace talks between the Duterte government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front.

(Text and photos by Reynald Denver del Rosario, Luigi Renzo Naval and Eunice Lei Wu of the UP-CMC for Kodao Productions)

US intervention in Marawi violates Philippine sovereignty–CPP

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THE Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) today denounced American military presence and “armed interference” in the ongoing operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in Marawi City against the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups.

As the battle in Marawi enters its 21st day and as the country commemorates the 119th anniversary of the declaration of independence from Spanish colonialism, the CPP said Philippine independence remains false with American military intervention. Read more

Duterte points at Lorenzana for US presence in Marawi

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PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte said it was the Defense department that decided to seek help from the United States armed forces in the ongoing battle for Marawi City.

In a press briefing during a visit to wounded soldiers in Cagayan de Oro City today, Duterte said he did not know the US military was already in Marawi helping the Armed Forces of the Philippines fight the Maute and Abu Sayyaf terror groups.

“I am not aware of that until they arrived. When I declared martial law, I gave the power to the defense department,” the President said as he gestured at National Defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana standing beside him. Read more

Peace group’s timeline shows how 5th round of talks failed to take off

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PEACE advocacy group Kapayapaan Campaign for a Just and Lasting Peace released a timeline chronicling events that led to the cancellation of the fifth round of formal talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) scheduled to be held last May 27 to June 1 in Noordwijk Aan Zee, The Netherlands.

Established by civic and church groups in 2014 when the Benigno Aquino government refused to resume formal negotiations with the NDFP, Kapayapaan is an active campaigner for the continuation of the formal negotiations between the government and the Left. Read more

Benguet groups condemn harassment of youth leader

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BAGUIO CITY— Activist organizations condemn the surveillance and harassment of a Cordillera youth leader by two men suspected to be state security agents.

Benguet indigenous youth leader Rima Mangili-Libongen had been subjected to surveillance, harassment and vilification by suspected state security agents since May this year, the Kabenguetan Agkaykaysa nga Ilaban ken Aywanan ti Biag, Daga, ken Kinabaknang, or Benguet Unite to Defend and Nurture Life, Land, and Resources (Kaiabang) and the Cordillera People’s Alliance (CPA)-Benguet Chapter said.

Kaiabang said the two suspects could only aim to intimidate Mangili-Libongen into stopping her leadership and organizing work, which colleagues fear may go beyond stalking and harassment.

Mangili-Libongen is a member of the famed music group Salidummay and Secretary General of Bileg ken Urnos dagiti Agtutubo nga Ybenguet (Buday, Strength and Unity of the Benguet Youth).

A 35-year old mother of three and residing in Ucab, Itogon, Benguet, Mangili-Libongen had been organizing youth and children for the theater arts and the Cordillera people’s movement since her college days at the Benguet State University in the early 2000s.

Mangili-Libongen has been tailed in Itogon where she lives and in this city, with one of the suspects monitoring the proceedings of the youth assembly she facilitated at the Itogon town training center in Bua, Tuding last May 30, the group said.

The harassment reportedly continued until the early morning of June 3 while Mangili-Libongen was at Shopper’s Lane in Baguio City with one of the suspects grabbing her forearm.

The man only released Mangili-Libongen’s arm when shopkeepers and passersby took notice.

The two men immediately left, Kaiabang said.

After the incident, Rima received a text from an unknown number saying, “Marami ka palang pinupuntahang lugar” (So you go to many places).

Alarmed that she may be harassed again, Mangili-Libongen changed her phone number but received another text message on June 8 that said “Tukoy ka na.” (You’ve been pinpointed.)

Impunity under Duterte

The CPA for its part said it could only be state agents who are behind the incidents.

“Comfortable in the impunity afforded them by the present dispensation, the military and police are capable of anything these days – as they were at the time of Marcos’s Martial Law and Macapagal-Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya,” the CPA said.

In April, rights group Karapatan submitted to the United National Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights a list of 47 cases of political extrajudicial killings under the Rodrigo Duterte government.

“These killings are all in the context of the counter-insurgency programs implemented from one regime to another that supposedly seek to end the armed rebellion of revolutionary movements in the Philippines,” Karapatan in its letter said.

“The victims of killings are peasants, indigenous peoples and workers. Many faced harassment and villification by the military because of their advocacy and actions to defend people’s rights and are thus considered as human rights defenders,” the group added. # (Olga Lauzon/Northern Dispatch for Kodao Productions. Featured image from the CPA.)

NPA blasts Lepanto mine facilities

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BAGUIO CITY— The Chadli Molintas Command (CMC) and Jennifer Carino Command (JCC) of the New People’s Army (NPA) claimed responsibility over the attacks on Lepanto Consolidated Mining Company facilities in Mankayan, Benguet late evening of June 7 and early dawn of June 8.

In a joint statement sent to the media, the NPA commands said the attacks were part of their continuing campaign to punish destructive and large scale mines like Lepanto as well as government troops for acting as the company’s security guards.

The CMC operates in the Ilocos and Cordillera regions while the JCC operates in Benguet Province.

The Philippine National Police in Mankayan earlier said that the gates of the LCMC Tailings Dam were attacked by armed men at 10:36 p.m., followed by a 10:46 p.m. attack on a chemical and mineral laboratory in Colalo village.

At 4 a.m., the police discovered that the armed men detonated explosives to destroy a police outpost, a backhoe and a copper processing machine.

Lepanto security personnel and soldiers claimed they drove back the rebels after the attackers succeeded in blasting a lime mixing plant and a bulldozer.

Police said two explosive devices attached to two dump trucks failed to set off.

Workers who witnessed the attack there said 7 armed men and a woman raided the facility.

Residents heard gunfire ring out followed by blasts near the mine site after midnight, Mankayan Mayor Materno Luspian for his part said.

Luspian said he was also informed of the firefight in Colalo.

According to the NPA, Lepanto land grabbed tens of hectares of rice fields in 1990 between Cabiten and Colalo villages where it built its Tailings Dam 5A despite widespread protest.

Second attack

In April 25, 2013 the NPA also torched Lepanto’s drilling machine in Colalo village. At the time, Lepanto was planning to build its Tailings Dam 5B.

The NPA said they attacked soldiers under the 81st IB of the Philippine Army stationed near Tailings Dam 5A.

They claimed the government troops were being used to violently quell people’s opposition against the raising of the tailing dam’s embankment.

Aside from the attack at the tailings dam area, the NPA also destroyed the carbon-in-pulp (CIP) cyanide processing plant owned by Colalo Barangay Captain Ambino Padawi.

They also burned a backhoe and other equipment in the said plant.

The guerillas also blasted the Community Police Action Center (Compac) beside the CIP.

The NPA accused Padawi of taking away the ancestral land of a clan and built the CIP on it despite the protests by other residents. # (Kimberlie Quitasol of Northern Dispatch for Kodao Productions/Featured photo by Raymund B. Villanueva)

Duterte terminating peace talks, Joma says.

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AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands—The Rodrigo Duterte government is no longer interested and has practically terminated its peace negotiations with the Left, National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said.

Replying to Duterte’s statements he is terminating the talks, Sison said the Manila government is now only bent on the surrender and pacification of the revolutionary forces and the people.

“It is not interested in social, economic and political reforms,” Sison said.

In his speech before soldiers in Ipil, Zamboanga Sibugay yesterday, Duterte said he is not keen on accepting NDFP’s offer for the NPA to fight with government troops against terror groups in Mindanao.

“I don’t know but I’m not so keen about it. Anyway, it’s a show of goodwill…It’s either we continue to talk about peace but we have to stop fighting,” Duterte said.

“I will not allow any talks on my behalf or ako kasi ang nandoon si Dureza pati si Bello. I will not allow them or authorize to go back to the negotiating table without them signing a document, unilateral kanila, they say that they would stop fighting,” he added.

In Malacañan last June 1, Duterte also said he terminated the negotiations.

“No more talks. And I have been saying it time and again, we have been fighting this war for 50 years. I’m asking now, the communists, are you ready to fight another 50 (years)?” Duterte said.

Duterte’s latest tirades came after his negotiating panel announced it “will not participate” in the fifth round of talks without a signed bilateral ceasefire agreement with the NDFP.

The GRP also demanded that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) rescind its order to the New People’s Army for more military operations against government troops in light of Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao.

The NDFP Negotiating Panel said the cancellation of the round was the decision and responsibility of its GRP counterpart.

“The GRP or Duterte cannot order the NDFP Negotiating Panel to just issue a unilateral ceasefire declaration without a panel-to-panel discussion on what the ceasefire declarations by both sides mean. He is now saying the NDFP should declare a ceasefire on its own, which is crazy,” Sison said.

“The revolutionary movement can never agree to a surrender and pacification scheme under the guise of a protracted and prolonged ceasefire that is one-sided and lays aside the demands of the people for social, economic and political reforms,” he added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Observers hope talks impasse is temporary

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NOORDWIJK AAN ZEE, The Netherlands—A nun and a priest who arrived in this city to observe the scheduled fifth round of formal peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) expressed disappointment at the cancellation of the talks.

Invited as observers to the formal negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP, Sr. Ma. Luz Mallo, MA, and Fr. Manuel Vicente Catral however said they are hopeful the stalemate is just temporary.

Sr. Luz, executive secretary of the Sisters Association of Mindanao and convenor of Sowing the Seeds of Peace in Mindanao, was on was on her way to this city from an international religious gathering in Weimar, Germany when she heard of the GRP’s announcement of its non-participation in the round.

“I still came over because I was hopeful there is a remedy to the impasse. I was praying socio-economic reforms would still be discussed,” Sr. Luz said.

“It does not benefit the Lumad, the Bangsamoro and the poor that finding solutions to the maldistribution of land, destruction of natural resources and other social ills in our country is postponed, even if temporarily,” she added.

Fr. Catral for his part questioned the sincerity of those who cancelled the round.

“How serious are we?  Shouldn’t it be that any attempt for peace be undertaken with utmost sincerity?” the Social Action Commission chairperson of the Archdiocese of Tuguegarao said.

Fr. Catral concelebrated a Holy Mass with Tuguegarao Archbishop Sergio Utleg last May 28 attended by both GRP and NDFP negotiators as well as Royal Norwegian Government officials who are facilitating the talks in this city.

“Be not afraid”

In place of a homily, Archbishop Utleg read the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) statement on the scheduled formal round encouraging the parties to “take bold steps that alone can bring peace.”

“We trust that our negotiators—on both sides—will be anointed by God’s Spirit so that His sons and daughters in this land that has already been drenched by so much blood may at last walk the ways of peace,” the CBCP said.

The CBCP also said both the GRP and the NDFP should “steadfastly stand for social justice and for the renewal of an order that has left too many to wither away in the peripheries.”

It was the first time a Holy Mass was celebrated as part of a formal round of GRP-NDFP talks.

The celebration lightened an obviously tensed atmosphere as the negotiators struggled to find a way around the impasse.

The GRP however eventually said there is no enabling and conducive environment for the fifth round to proceed with the formal round, scuttling the talks a few hours after the Mass.

Reforms over war

“I am personally disappointed that, in an instant, the apparent high hopes displayed by the negotiators after the Mass changed in an instant,” Fr. Catral for his part said.

The priest said he is saddened he failed to observe how the parties would have negotiated for free land distribution, delivery of basic social services and environment protection.

“All the efforts exerted to prepare for this round are wasted,” he added.

Sr. Luz for her part disagreed with the GRP decision, saying those most affected by social inequalities should have the strongest voice in the negotiations.

“The context of the reason given by the GRP Panel is wrong,” the nun said, adding support for the continuation of the formal negotiations is strong among the marginalized sectors.

“I saw how the MARBAI (Madaum Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Association, Inc.) fought for their land and President Duterte himself supported their struggle.  Why can’t landlessness among the farmers be discussed in the peace negotiations?” she asked.

Both however expressed hope the impasse is temporary.

“I observed that both parties are ready to discuss socio-economic reforms.  Even when the round was officially cancelled, there were still holding meetings to prepare for the resumption of negotiations,” Sr. Luz said.

“I hope the Filipino people show the GRP and the NDFP the depth of their desire for the talks to proceed.  That is the only way the negotiators can take the peace talks more seriously,” Fr. Catral said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)