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ITANONG MO KAY PROF: Hinggil sa banta kay Chief Justice Sereno at hudikatura

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Sa pagbabalik ng ‘Itanong mo kay Prof’ pinag-usapan nina Prof. Jose Maria Sison at Prof. Sarah Raymundo ang tangkang pagtatanggal kay Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno ng administrasyong Rodrigo Duterte.

Ano ang ibig sabihin ng tangkang impeachment kay Sereno? Ano ang implikayon nito sa independensiya ng hudikatura sa panahong inaakusahan ang gubyernong Duterte ng malawak na paglabag sa karapatang pantao? Mapapatalsik kaya ang Punong Mahistrado?

Pakinggan ang analisis ng nangungunang social scientist ng Pilipinas sa isyung ito.

Kodao’s ‘Itanong mo kay Prof’ to resume podcasting

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“Itanong mo kay Prof’, Kodao’s groundbreaking podcast featuring Professors Jose Maria Sison and Sarah Raymundo will soon resume broadcasting.

The podcast presents commentary and analyses by Sison, considered by followers as the country’s top social scientist and intellectual.

University of the Philippines sociologist Raymundo conducts the interview.

“Itanong mo kay Prof’ was a popular source of audio interviews of Sison for various radio stations and programs across the Philippines.

Podcasting was suspended in 2016 due to Sison’s busy schedule following the resumption of formal peace negotiations between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines.

Duterte orders negotiators to work on resuming talks with Reds

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The Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) have stepped closer to resuming formal peace negotiations.

In a tweet Wednesday night, Presidential peace process adviser Jesus Dureza announced that GRP President Rodrigo Duterte has directed his peace negotiators to work on resuming formal talks with the NDFP.

“President Duterte directed during the Cabinet meeting today (Wednesday) to work on the resumption of peace talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF [Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army] with clear instructions on the importance of forging a ceasefire agreement to stop mutual attacks and fighting while talks are underway,” Dureza said.

Dureza added that Duterte has said to give the peace process “…another last chance”.

He said the Duterte has also committed “to provide support” to the revolutionary movement as long as it stops imposing and collecting taxes.

NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison for his part said that formal peace negotiations are the right venues to deal with GRP’s issues and complaints such as ceasefire proposals and the NPA’s revolutionary taxation activities.

“The resumption of peace talks between the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels is needed precisely to deal with substantive issues and complaints,” Sison said.

Sison said that in the same round of formal talks, the parties can present conflicting positions and subsequently seek to solve problems “on mutually acceptable grounds.”

He said that both negotiating panels already have a draft of the agreement on coordinated unilateral ceasefires, “which is under the watch of a joint national ceasefire committee.”

“This draft agreement is in effect the start of a bilateral ceasefire agreement. It is a significant step towards the Comprehensive Agreement on the End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces,” he added.

Sison also said that the GRP and NDFP has already achieved substantial consensus on the general principles of agrarian reform and rural development and national industrialization and economic development, which both parties acknowledge are the most important parts of the prospective social and economic reforms agreements.

He added that there is also a draft amnesty proclamation to release all the political prisoners listed by the NDFP in compliance with the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law.

“When the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels meet, they can be confident of achieving substantial success. Without a formal meeting of the panels, there can only be an acrimonious public exchange of complaints and demands, which appear or sound like the preconditions prohibited by The Hague Joint Declaration,” Sison said.

The Hague Joint Declaration requires that no side shall impose on the other side preconditions that negate the character and purpose of peace negotiations.

“The conflicting parties become negotiating parties precisely to thresh out serious differences and complaints and seek the solutions to achieve a just and lasting peace,” Sison explained.

“As a matter of course, the two panels shall reaffirm all the existing agreements by way of ending the previous termination of the peace negotiations. It logically follows that the two panels shall cooperate in doing away with the obstacles and hindrances to the agreements and to the entire peace process,” he added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

 

NDFP welcomes Duterte’s statement to resume talks

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The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) welcomed President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent speech expressing “openness and readiness” to resume formal peace negotiations.

NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said they are likewise open and ready to resume the peace negotiations and expect the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and NDFP negotiating panels to meet as soon as possible.

Duterte last Tuesday again changed his mind and said he is ready to resume formal peace negotiations with the Left.

“I’d like to address myself first to the NPAs. Alam mo, hindi tayo magkalaban. Gusto ko mang lumaban, eh ang puso ko, sinasabi niya ‘ang kapwa mo Pilipino pinapatay mo,’” Duterte said in a speech in Bongabong, Oriental Mindoro.

“Gusto kong magkaroon tayo ng usapan. But along the way, papunta doon maraming obstructions and everything. But you must understand, hindi madali magpunta sa paratingan natin,” he said.

“And so if we can have a middle ground,” Duterte added.

In a statement issued a few hours after Duterte’s speech, Sison said the NDFP is “sincere in striving to negotiate and forge with the GRP comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms to address the roots of the armed conflict and lay the basis of a just and lasting peace.”

Sison said making a significant advance on the basis of the drafts prepared on October 4, 2017 will also forward corollary agreements to amnesty and release all political prisoners as well as coordinated unilateral ceasefires between the parties’ armed forces.

“We hope that from here on we can make steady and significant advances on the road of realizing peace in accordance with the people´s demand for full national independence, democracy, social justice, economic development and cultural progress,” Sison said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

With Arayat as witness 49 years ago today

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This was the spot where Jose Maria Sison, fresh from re-establishing the Communist Party of the Philippines the previous year, met with guerrilla leader Bernabe “Ka Dante” Buscayno to establish the New People’s Army in March 29, 1968,  Read more

Joma shows map of NPA presence in 73 provinces

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National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison posted a map of the Philippines showing New People’s Army (NPA) presence in “at least 73 of 81 provinces of the country.”

“The color red in this map shows the presence of the New People´s Army in at least 73 out of the 81 Philippine provinces,” Sison said in his Facebook post.

“NPA presence denotes the existence of the people´s militia and the self-defense units of the revolutionary mass organizations. These two layers of people´s defense are the auxiliary and reserve force of the NPA,” Sison wrote.

He said the map came from the Philippine Revolution Web Collective and the NDFP.

According to the map, among the provinces the NPA does not currently have presence are Batanes, Bataan, Biliran, Cebu, Marinduque, Siquijor, Romblon, and Guimaras.

The Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao are also uncolored.

The Government of the Republic of the Philippines repeatedly announced in recent years that the NPA is down to about 3,700 fighters.

The  Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) recently presented to President Rodrigo Duterte hundreds of NPA fighters who allegedly surrendered as part of 4,000 who recently abandoned armed struggle.

“These are indicators of growing discontent within their organizations, the success of our programs, and the cooperation between residents and local government units,” AFP spokesperson Col. Edgard Arevalo said in a press conference last January.

Netizens, however, pointed out that the Duterte government in fact presented 300 more so-called surrendered members than the AFP’s claim of NPA’s 3,700 fighters. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Duterte’s Scheme of Fascist Dictatorship

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By Prof. Jose Ma. Sison/Telesur

By his pseudo-independent foreign policy, Duterte is trying to turn the Philippines into a condominium of the imperialist powers.

The Negotiating Panels of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) were poised to hold the fifth round of formal peace talks in Oslo when GRP President Duterte went into a daily series of anti-communist rants from November 18, 2017 onwards and subsequently issued Proclamation 360 to terminate the peace negotiations with the NDFP and Proclamation 374 to designate the Communist of the Party of the Philippines (CPP), New People´s Army (NPA), their suspected supporters and financiers as “terrorist.”

Ironically, 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 panels expected that within the first quarter of 2018 CASER would be ready for signing by the principals and the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms (CAPCR) would be negotiated and forged in coordination with the processes of the GRP Congress in revising the 1987 Constitution and possibly arriving at a consensus of all major political forces on what ought to be a federal system of government. But obviously Duterte had all along wished to preempt and exclude the NDFP from what is now coming to light as his scheme of fascist dictatorship under the pretense of federalism.

Duterte had allowed his panel to engage the NDFP panel in back channel consultations in October 2017 in Utrecht and in subpanel bilateral meetings in Manila from September to November 2017 to complete the aforesaid drafts for panel-to-panel processing until he abruptly changed his mind and terminated the peace negotiations. The somersault followed his extended conversations with U.S. President Trump who supposedly assured him of political and military support for a plan to crack down on the CPP and NPA and finish them off before the end of 2018.

Termination of Peace Negotiations Necessary for Duterte Fascist Dictatorship

Although the plan is overambitious and quite impossible to achieve, it is necessary for Duterte to terminate the peace negotiations and slander the CPP and NPA by labeling them as ”terrorists” to pave the way for further extension of martial law in Mindanao for the whole year of 2018 and the eventual nationwide expansion of martial law directed against the CPP and NPA. This is in line with Duterte´s scheme of imposing his fascist dictatorship on the Philippines.

Even before the first extension of the proclamation of martial law in Mindanao could lapse at the end of 2017, Duterte boasted that he had defeated the Dawlah Islamiyah (Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups) in Marawi City and therefore he had basically no more need for martial law in Mindanao. But he found in the extension of the martial law proclamation a device for including the CPP and NPA as targets in a further extension to the whole of 2018 through the expediency of terminating the peace negotiations and accusing the CPP and NPA of escalating violence and endangering public safety.

Duterte was quite confident of getting the further extension of martial law in Mindanao because of his “supermajority” in his rubber-stamp Congress. He also has a steady majority of at least eight of the justices in the Supreme Court (four are his own recent appointees and five are appointees of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo) to uphold his martial law proclamation in the same way that they have been able to dismiss the plunder case against Arroyo and allow the burial of Marcos in the Libingan ng mga Bayani due to Duterte´s super-corrupt alliance with the Luzon-based dynasties of Marcos, Arroyo, Estrada and other notorious plunderers..

Duterte is hell-bent on realizing his scheme to reimpose a fascist dictatorship on the Filipino people by revising and in effect scrapping the 1987 Constitution under the pretext of adopting a federal system of government. The trick is similar to that of Marcos in pretending to opt for a parliamentary form of government in order to scrap the 1935 Constitution and install a fascist dictatorship under the cover of transitory provisions.

Federalism As Pretext for Imposing Duterte Fascist Dictatorship on the People

Duterte is not really keen on establishing a federal system of government but on actually installing a highly centralized unitary kind of a presidential dictatorship on top of regional governments run by dynasties, including warlords and the most corrupt bureaucrat capitalists like himself. The big comprador-landlord state servile to foreign monopoly capitalism will  remain intact under his scheme.

To satisfy his appetite for autocratic power, Duterte finds it absolutely necessary to use martial law nationwide in a hysterical and futile attempt to intimidate and suppress the armed revolutionary movement, dissent and opposition in general. The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus provides an effective cover and license for abducting, dispossessing, torturing and murdering  revolutionaries and all  people who oppose him. Even now, he cannot wait for a court to approve his designation of the CPP and NPA as “terrorists.” He has repeatedly called on his military minions to kill them upon sight.

The Bicameral Resolution No. 8 with the title “Constituting the Senate and the House of Representatives,” of the 17th Congress, into a “Constituent Assembly by Adopting a Federal Form of Government and for Other Purposes” is already on the rails and will be railroaded when congressional sessions resume in January 2018. Duterte and his cohorts will be the sole determinant of the content of the pseudo-federal charter. The charter is already slated for ratification during the May 18 barangay elections. The Kilusang Pagbabago, the Duterte troll army and the pro-Duterte hacks in print and electronic media are all arranged to rah-rah the ratification.

Even before Duterte is able to get a new constitution for his despotic purposes, the Filipino people have become familiar with his propensity for mass murder and deception in Oplan Tokhang. Combine this with the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus under martial law and you can expect a far bigger catastrophe than the Marcos fascist dictatorship in terms of of murder and mayhem.

In the absence of any revolutionary social transformation,  the country will be getting more of the same ruling families of big compradors, landlords and bureaucrat capitalists at  all levels of government. Corruption will continue to run rampant on top of excessive expenditures for establishing and elaborating on the regional level of government. The U.S. and other multinational firms will continue to plunder and ravage the human and natural resources of the Philippines.

To get the blessings of the U.S. and other imperialist powers, the new pseudo-federal constitution will get rid of the nationality requirements or restrictions on foreign investments in violation of economic sovereignty and national patrimony by simply inserting the phrase, “unless otherwise provided by law.”  Precious limited resources for economic development, at best through centralized and regional planning, will be dissipated by profit remittances and capital repatriation by foreign monopoly firms, bureaucratic corruption and rising bureaucratic and military and police personnel for the central and regional levels of government.

The ever worsening crisis of the semicolonial and semifeudal ruling system will continue to result in the divisiveness of the reactionary classes, the intensification of the anti-imperialist and class struggle, the further rise of the armed revolutionary  movement, dissatisfaction of indigenous peoples and national minorities and  stronger currents of separatism among the Bangsamoro.

 Surpassing Marcos as Best Recruiter and Supplier of the Armed Revolution

Duterte is bound to surpass Marcos as the best recruiter and supply officer of the armed revolution, as the unwitting wrecker of his own regime and ruling system and as provider of an ever more fertile ground for the growth of the people´s democratic revolution through people´s war. However, Duterte does not have as many years left as Marcos had when he imposed fascist dictatorship in 1972.  His aberrant speech and behavior reveal the state of his mental and physical health.

His propensity to monopolize political power and bureaucratic loot  and his ability to run the reactionary government Mafia style will eventually work against him due to his own personal and class infirmities and more importantly due to the systemic crisis and lethal blows from the revolutionary movement and the people. The adverse results of his broken promises will soon bear heavily upon him. The broad masses of the people are already taking him to task for failing to solve the problem of illegal drugs, for destroying the entire Marawi City and for terminating the peace negotiations with the NDFP.

By his pseudo-independent foreign policy, Duterte is trying to turn the Philippines into a condominium of the imperialist powers. He thinks as if he can freely get, without strings attached, military equipment from these powers and limitless loans for limitless infrastructure building to buoy up the economy and keep himself in power. He has in fact allowed China to trample on the sovereign rights of the Philippines over the West Philippine Sea under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

He is aggravating the semicolonial status of the Philippines as well as the underdeveloped, agrarian and semifeudal character of the economy.
This kind of economy is ever dependent on the export of cheap raw materials, semimanufactures and cheap labor, on the import of foreign manufactures for consumption and on an ever desperate resort to increasing amounts of foreign loans and speculative capital and to higher taxation to cover trade and budgetary deficits.

The broad masses of the people are angered today by the recently railroaded Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN). This further raises the prices of basic goods and services and generates inflation by increasing indirect taxes (excise, sales and value-added taxes) just to cover tax cuts and tax holidays for the upper classes and fund the counterproductive spending and debt servicing by the state. The rates of unemployment and inflation, though understated in official statistics, are actually causing more poverty and misery on a wider scale.

Contrary to the assurances of his neoliberal economic advisers, Duterte cannot be saved by any increase in the GDP growth rate. The higher the growth rate, the bigger the take of the multinational firms, the big compradors and bureaucrat capitalists and the more severe the conditions of underdevelopment, mass unemployment and poverty afflicting the broad masses of the people. In the final analysis, the big problem for the U.S.-directed Duterte regime is that the oppressed and exploited people have an armed revolutionary movement for undertaking meaningful change in terms of national and social liberation.

As Duterte vacillates, NDFP perseveres on peace documents

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While President Rodrigo Duterte has yet to decide whether to resume formal peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) the Reds are hard at work on their draft documents on social and political as well as political and constitutional reforms.

NDFP Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison said the NDFP has encouraged its peace panel, its Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms (RWC-SER) and its Reciprocal Working Group on Political and Constitutional Reforms (RWG-PCR) to continue their drafting work despite Duterte´s scuttling of the fifth round of formal talks last May.

“Indeed, the NDFP Negotiating Panel, the RWC-SER and RWG-PCR have continued their drafting work with the same dedication and enthusiasm as before,” Sison said.

Sison was reacting to Duterte’s statement Saturday that he is again open to resuming formal negotiations with the NDFP after the New People’s Army in Compostela Valley Province released prisoner of war (POW) Senior Police Officer 2 George Rupinta.

“If you (NDFP) want to resume the talks, I am not averse to the idea. But let me sort out first the other branches of government,” Duterte said said after meeting with the freed POW.

Sison said the NDFP consultants and experts who are working on the drafts of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms (CAPCR) do not wish to throw away the work they have done on account of Duterte’s withdrawal in the talks.

Sison said the NDFP peace panel is anticipating several possibilities in their ongoing work.

“The Duterte regime itself might in due time find it wise and necessary to resume formal peace talks or it cannot last long in power and it is replaced by a new leadership of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) that is willing to resume the peace negotiations,” he said.

In either case, Sison said the NDFP Negotiating Panel, its RWC-SER and its RWG-PCR cannot be disappointed with having worked hard to do serious research, public consultations and deliberations in order to produce the drafts they would consider worthy of the negotiations and the Filipino people.

Sison said the third possibility is that the Duterte or post-Duterte regime of the GRP is not interested in peace negotiations with the NDFP to address the roots of the armed conflict.

“Then the people’s democratic revolution through protracted people’s war simply proceeds until it overthrows the rotten ruling system,” he said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

 

CPP says it’s time to fight Duterte’s ‘repressive tyrannical rule’

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The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) called for the isolation of the Rodrigo Duterte administration after the successive killings of minors believed connected with the government’s war against drugs as well as its martial law in Mindanao and counter-insurgency program.

In an editorial of the party’s official organ Ang Bayan, the CPP’s said the Filipino people’s outrage is rapidly accumulating against Duterte’s “repressive tyrannical rule.”

“They indict Duterte for the successive killings of several youths these past days by his armed minions: Kian delos Santos, 17 years old, Carl Angelo Arnaiz, 19 and Reynaldo de Guzman, 14, who all were tortured and killed by stabbing and shooting by the police in the “war against drugs”; and Obillio Bay-ao, 19, Lumad youth in Talaingod, Davao del Norte, who was shot and killed by paramilitary forces,” the article said.

The CPP said the people blame Duterte for the killing of many thousands by the three wars he has launched: the Oplan Tokhang “war against drugs”, the Oplan Kapayapaan war of suppression and martial law in Mindanao, and the anti-Moro war and destruction of Marawi.

“The people detest Duterte for repeatedly ensuring protection and giving incentives to police and soldiers for blindly following his kill orders,” the CPP said.

The revolutionary group said almost 20 were killed under Oplan Kapayapaan and Oplan Tokhang in the last two weeks alone.

The CPP also scored the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ failure to end the war in Marawi after more than 100 days of siege.

“The people are fed up with Duterte’s repetitious, scornful and self-conceited speeches. His pretensions, spectacles and false images are rapidly losing efficacy in the face of actual measures, policies and programs which harm the interests of the people and oppress the downtrodden,” the CPP said.

The party called on its forces to “act vigorously to expand and consolidate the ranks of mass organizations and build the people’s broadest unity in order to isolate and resist the US-Duterte regime.”

The group urged the formation of broad alliances, that could include “Duterte’s political rivals.”

“Various forces can also unite against Duterte’s measures to suppress his political rivals (through detention, impeachment and murder) and to monopolize political power through charter change under its supposed pursuit of ‘federalism,’” the CPP said.

The CPP said the people are slowly overcoming and repudiating the climate of awe and fear imposed by Duterte.

‘Sparrow’ teams and commando units

CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison for his part said there is a public clamor to form self-defense units in communities in addition to New People’s Army and People’s Militia forces to defend the people against Duterte’s “triple war.”

“The CPP’s Central Committee may study and decide on this clamor as it sees fit,” Sison in an online interview told Kodao.

Sison said it is justified that the Filipino people fight the Duterte regime using all forms of struggle in light of the killings of civilians, including minors.

“If ever-increasing and ever-widening rallies won’t be enough to isolate and oust the Duterte regime, the people’s war should move resolutely forward so that it won’t just be Duterte but the corrupt ruling system that would be brought down,” Sison said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

‘Time to unite’: NDFP panel to recommend reconsideration of order to intensify attacks vs GRP forces

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AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands—The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Negotiating Panel is recommending to the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the NDFP Executive Committee a reconsideration of the order to intensify attacks against Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) forces after Department of National Defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana’s statements against the New People’s Army (NPA).

Seeking to ease tensions on the eve of their fifth round of formal peace negotiations in this country caused by an exchange of accusations by GRP chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III and the CPP yesterday, the NDFP’s chief political consultant said both the Left and the Duterte government must unite at this time against United States of America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)-supported terrorism.

“The NDFP Negotiating Panel has recommended to the National Executive Committee of the NDFP and in effect the Central Committee of the CPP to reconsider the order to the NPA to intensify tactical offensives as response to the Lorenzana statement that the NPA is a target of martial law,” Sison said.

“The terrorist act by the Maute group should not be an obstacle to the fifth round of formal talks but should be an incentive to the GRP and NDFP to meet and agree to fight groups that are terrorist because they target, terrorize and harm civilians, solely or mainly,” he added.

Sison explained the GRP side has clarified that the NPA is not a target of President Rodrigo Duterte’s martial law declaration in Mindanao last May 22 after the Maute Group group started its attack of Marawi City, Lanao del Sur.

“In fact President Duterte himself told (NDFP chief negotiator) Fidel Agcaoili in their recent meeting that the GRP and NDFP should unite against terrorist groups like the Maute group and Abu Sayyaf,” Sison said.

Sison added the NDFP are together with the GRP in opposing and fighting the ISIS-affiliated and CIA-supported groups like the Maute group and Abu Sayyaf.

“We in the NDFP condemn the attack by Maute group on Marawi City,” Sison said.

Earlier, NDFP-Mindanao condemned attack in Marawi City by the Maute Group and expressed concern and solidarity for the people of Marawi City.

Heated exchange

Yesterday, the CPP took exception to government chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III’s statements the underground party insulted Duterte and said martial law over the entire Mindanao region is an attack against the civil and political rights of the Filipino people.

“It curtails their freedom of movement and other freedoms. Martial law transfers these freedoms to the military and subjects the people to abuse. Under martial law, it is the military, these notorious abusers of human rights, who rule,” the CPP warned.

The CPP cited harassments already being conducted by government forces against civilians in Mindanao.

“In Davao City, with its overzealous martial law supporter Mayor Sarah Duterte, people in their communities are being rounded up. Close to three hundred people have already been arbitrarily arrested by the military for failing to comply with the arbitrary rules imposed by the military and the militarist-minded bureaucrats,” the CPP said.

Suara Bangsamoro- Socsksargen also reported about 30 women Lumad, Moro, pastors and church lay workers of the Ecumenical Women Forum were detained and interrogated by the 6th Marine Landing Battalion Team (MLBT) in Brgy. Domulon, Palimbang, Sultan Kudarat at about 7:30  morning of May 25.

In an alert, the group said the interrogation lasted for more than an hour and the victims’ photos were taken.

The traumatized victims were on their way to attend their Capacity Building and Ecological Seminar Workshop and community integration when waylaid by government troopers.

“Duterte’s martial law is bound to be worse than its Oplan Tokhang. With these stringent policies, Duterte is demonstrating that under his martial law, everyone is a suspect until they can prove otherwise. As every Filipino knows, especially the poor and downtrodden, proving one’s innocence to the military is often impossible,’ the CPP said.

“As Duterte’s martial law is against the people, it is imperative for the New People’s Army (NPA) to take action to oppose and fight it in order to defend the people’s rights and interests,” the group said, explaining its earlier statement ordering its armed wing to conduct military operations against state forces in response to Duterte’s martial law declaration.

 Yesterday, Bello scored CPP’s directive to the NPA to intensify attacks as “totally misplaced borne out of a grossly distorted appreciation of the President’s intention.”

“We are deeply disturbed that the CPP made a false reading of the intents of President Duterte in placing Mindanao under Martial Law,” Bello said in a statement, explaining the GRP chief executive saw the need “to restore law and order, protect the lives of the citizens and preserve private and state properties.”

Bello added the CPP’s order is senseless and betrays “the absence of sincerity of the CPP in the negotiating table.

He demanded the CPP recall its directive or be accused of abetting the “criminal and terror acts of the Maute group and a gang of Moro bandits.”

Bello denied Duterte’s martial law is also after the NPA.

“The President, in no uncertain terms, categorically declared he was not after the NPA,” he said.

“Loose Lorenzana”

Bello’s statement, however, runs counter to Lorenzana’s earlier statement that the NPA is one of the targets of Duterte’s Mindanao-wide martial law order.

In a press briefing last May 23, Lorenzana said Mindanao was placed under Martial Law “because there are also problems in Zamboanga, Sulu, Tawi-tawi and also in Central Mindanao in the BIFF (Bangsamoro Freedom Fighters) area.”

“We also have problems in Region 11, the extortion activities of the New People’s Army,” Lorenzana said in Filipino.

“If it was true that martial law in Mindanao is not directed against the NPA, then Bello must inform Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana,” the CPP countered.

“In announcing the declaration of martial law, it was Lorenzana himself who cited the NPA as one of the GRP’s ‘problems’ why the entire Mindanao had to be put under martial law,” it added.

Sison also scored Lorenzana’s statement, saying he deplores Lorenzana’s statement that the NPA is also a target of Mindanao-wide martial law. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)