“The ceasefires are intended to generate a positive environment conducive to the holding of informal talks preparatory to the formal meeting to resume the peace negotiations,” the statement, signed last Saturday, December 21, reads.
The goodwill measures include the release of sick and elderly political prisoners and the detained NDFP consultants on humanitarian grounds and the declaration and implementation of reciprocal unilateral ceasefires, Sison said.
“This transfer scheme would in effect result in the dissolution of the entire political prisoner’s wing in Bicutan,” Lim said.
“The suspects entered the transmitter room and burned equipment like the radio transmitter, Automatic Voltage Regulator (AVR), and electric wiring, causing estimated damage of P1Million,” the NUJP said.
“The live coverage/streaming of the promulgation would allow the families and relatives of the 58 victims who may not be able to attend the promulgation in Metro Manila to hear live the reading of the court’s decision on the killing of their relatives,” the media groups wrote Supreme Court Chief Justice Diosdado Peralta.
“It is timely for the GRP and NDFP to celebrate with the Filipino people the season of Christmas and the New Year and to create the favorable atmosphere for peace negotiations by undertaking such goodwill measures,” Sison said.
“This precondition is totally unacceptable to the NDFP because it aims to put the NDFP and the entire peace negotiations in the pocket of the Duterte regime and under the control and surveillance of the bloodthirsty military and police who engage in mass murders and other heinous crimes with impunity,” Sison said in a statement Saturday.
“If Duterte wants to talk and takes the concrete steps about it, the NDFP has to consider seriously what he proposes. The NDFP has to be open to any possibility for the benefit of the Filipino people,” NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison told Kodao.
According to Kapatid, the organization of families and friends of political prisoners, the transfer of political prisoners is part of a bigger scheme “to further restrict the movement and access to much needed medical attention, legal services, visits and support from relatives and friends.”
Xandra Casambre, the couple’s daughter, said the charges are trumped-up, including the two counts of attempted murder and a murder case filed against her father in Davao Oriental “where he never been before.”
