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NDFP’s Vic Ladlad arrested


National Democratic Front of the Philippines’ (NDFP) senior peace consultant Vicente Ladlad has been arrested by the police, his wife Fides Lim announced on her Facebook account.

“My husband VIC LADLAD was arrested today, November 8, around 12 midnight based on a text I got. Status: MISSING,” Lim said.

Lim added Ladlad was arrested together with a couple in Doña Tomasa, Brgy. San Bartolome, Novaliches in Quezon City quoting the unnamed couple’s daughter.

“Arresting unit can only be the CIDG (the Criminal Investigation and  Detection Group of the Philippine National Police) which tailed me last week. PLEASE HELP ME LOOK FOR VIC,” Lim said.

Lim earlier publicly accused government intelligence agents of casing their house and tailing her around Makati City in their bid to look for Ladlad.

She added that her husband is a chronic asthmatic which has degenerated into emphysema and needs his medicines badly.

Lim warned the police not to “plant” firearms or explosives on her husband.

The police is known to charge NDFP consultants with possession of guns and explosives to prevent them from posting bail.

In a later post, however, media outfit Pinoy Weekly said Ladlad is being held at the PNP’s Camp Karingal in Quezon City.

Kodao sources said that Ladlad may be brought later today to Camp Crame.

Ladlad’s lawyers said he and other NDFP consultants have been taking “precautionary security measures” since President Rodrigo Duterte cancelled peace negotiations between his government and the NDFP last November.

Ladlad was later accused of being one of the top leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines in a government petition to have the group proscribed as “terrorist”.

Ladlad is supposed to be immune from arrest as a Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees-protected peace negotiator.

Earlier, senior peace consultants Rafael Baylosis and Adelberto Silva were also arrested by the police and military in January and October, respectively. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

GRP-NDFP’s week-long ‘stand down’ agreement to start June 21

The “stand down” agreement between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) shall start on June 21, one week before the resumption of formal talks in Oslo on June 28.

NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison confirmed to Kodao that the stand down ceasefire was agreed upon by the two parties in writing during their successful backchannel talks in The Netherlands last June 5 to 10.

Sison said the thrice-cancelled fifth round of formal talks shall push through on June 28 to 30, contrary to GRP President Rodrigo Duterte’s latest statement that the negotiations would resume sometime in mid-July.

Kodao earlier learned from government sources that the backchannel talks pushed through last week on the strength of the GRP’s efforts to allow NDFP panel member Benito Tiamzon and other consultants to travel to Europe for the negotiations.

Vicente Ladlad, Randall Echanis, Edilberto Silva, Allan Jazmines and Rafael Baylosis, are also due to join the NDFP panel in Europe for the negotiations.

Baylosis was arrested last February on charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives and is jailed at Camp Bagong Diwa. He denied the charges, saying the so-called evidences were planted by the military and police.

Tiamzon, Ladlad, Echanis, Silva and Jazmines were also under threat of arrest when their bail bonds were cancelled and were named in a GRP petition proscribing the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army (NPA) as terrorist organizations following Duterte’s third cancellation of the fifth round of talks last November.

NDFP chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili for his part said he thinks Duterte has yet to be briefed by the GRP panel on the results of the informal talks last June 5 to 10.

“In fact, we were informed that the members of the GRP Panel who attended the informal talks have a scheduled meeting with him on Wednesday, June 13,” Agcaoili told Kodao.

“So he (Duterte) would know only tomorrow that the two sides have agreed to hold the resumption of formal talks on 28-30 June in Oslo and to make a joint announcement of a stand down of their forces a week before the resumption or on 21 June in Manila,” he said.

Agcaoili added it is clear to both parties and the Third Party Facilitator, the Royal Norwegian Government, that the announcement of the stand down depends on the date of the resumption and shall be effective for no longer than one week.

The NDFP earlier said a stand down ceasefire agreement means that both the NPA on their side and the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police on the GRP side are to cease conducting offensive military operations to pave the way for the signing of an interim peace agreement.

The interim peace agreement is expected to be signed by the GRP and the NDFP during the fifth round of formal talks and shall consist of a coordinated unilateral ceasefire, general amnesty for more than 500 NDFP-listed political prisoners, and agrarian reform and rural development as well as national industrialization and economic development agreements.

Both parties have said the social and economic reform negotiations are the most important parts of the peace negotiations. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)