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Duterte’s Mindanao-wide martial law is unjustified–Joma

PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has no or little justification to declare martial law in the whole of Mindanao, National Democratic Front of the Philippines Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison said.

After the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) announced the ongoing clash in Marawi City is a mere diversionary tactic by the Maute Group, Sison questioned if the invasion or rebellion is large enough to justify Duterte’s declaration.

“There is even an allegation the AFP made a ‘false flag operation’ to justify martial law,” Sison said.

Duterte reportedly declared martial law at five o’clock in the afternoon yesterday (10 pm, PH time) in Moscow to cover the entire Mindanao which will run for 60 days.

Warrantless arrests, imposition of curfew hours and other stringent security measures are to be implemented in connection to the declaration, reports said.

The reports said Duterte decided to cut short his state visit to Russia and is expected to fly back to the Philippines today.

National Defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana for his part also reportedly justified the inclusion of the entire region due to (security) problems in Zamboanga, Sulu and Tawi tawi, as well as in Central Mindanao with the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters and the New People’s Army.

Sison warned Duterte not to be another Ferdinand Marcos and use the Marawi clashes as justification to declare martial law in the entire Philippines.

“Ganyan din ang ginawa noong 1971-1972 nang sinubukang disarmahan ang Kamorohan sa Marawi rin,” Sison said.

Sison said Marcos’ martial law left behind bitter memories of abhorrent abductions, torture, extrajudicial killings, incarceration of many civilians, evictions and forced evacuations as well as confiscation of land and property.

“Duterte is playing with fire if he thinks it is a solution to Philippine problems,” Sison said.

Earlier, Moro organization Suara Bangsamoro called on the AFP not to conduct aerial bombings in Marawi, fearing civilian lives and livelihood will become collateral damage.

“We have received reports that aerial and artillery bombing will be conducted by the state forces to eradicate the Maute Group in the city,” Suara Bangsamoro chairperson Jerome Succor Aba said.

Instead of putting the city under military siege, the leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), Moro National Liberation Front, and other religious leaders should talk to the Maute Group and come up with agreements to restore peace in the city, the group suggested.

“However, diplomatic talks between Moro leaders and the Maute Group will not prosper if the AFP will continue its military operations and bombings,” Aba said, adding that the Moro people in Mindanao is capable of solving this problem in a diplomatic way to avoid civilian casualties and human rights violations.

“We call on the Duterte Administration to address the peace instability through talks and diplomatic means,” Aba said.

Suara Bangsamoro said the Maute Group has ties with Islamic State (IS) militants and are frustrated with the direction the Moro’s struggles for self-determination are heading, forcing them towards IS.

“The establishment of a new caliphate and a global Islamic State has become an inspiring goal to the group because of the government’s insincerity and tokenism in resolving the core problems of the Moro people – inequity in the distribution of wealth and resources, government neglect to basic social services, lack of job opportunities, right to self-determination, among others,” Aba said.

Aba believes that the Maute Group is aware that the Philippine Government is not serious in implementing its agreements with the MILF and likened the situation with how The Tripoli Agreement with the MNLF has largely been ignored in the past.

Meanwhile, the Maute Group has taken over a hospital and burned a cathedral and a school since it derailed an AFP police operation at two o’clock yesterday afternoon, sources said.

The main building, science laboratories and library of the Protestant-owned Dansalan College were burned down while professors and students are trapped elsewhere in campus as exit points were blocked by both AFP and Maute troopers, United Church of Christ in the Philippines pastor Juliet Solis said.

Dr. Fedilinda Tawagon, Dansalan College president, asked for a helicopter rescue for the trapped victims, Solis added.

Marawi’s main road is also being controlled by black-clad men with high powered assault rifles, reports said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

 

Joma on Gina’s rejection: Reactionaries in Congress won

ENVIRONMENT and Natural Resources secretary Regina Paz Lopez’s rejection by the Commission on Appointments (CA) diminished the prospects of negotiated reforms for a just and lasting peace, National Democratic Front of the Philippines chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said.

Reacting to CA’s 15-9 vote against Lopez’s confirmation today, Sison said “reactionaries in Congress cast a dismal shadow on the prospects of legislation that is needed to enable the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) to fulfill its obligations under the CASER (Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms) now being negotiated,” Sison said.

Despite widespread support of Lopez’s anti-destructive mining crusade, the 25-member commission rejected with finality one of President Rodrigo Duterte’s most popular cabinet appointments.

“The people are left with no choice but to fight even more fiercely against the big compradors, landlords and the corrupt politicians,” Sison said, blaming “reactionaries” in the Duterte government for Lopez’s rejection.

Progressives also expressed dismay at the development, calling it a victory for mining oligarchs.

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said an extraordinary chance to protect the environment and the rights of the people has been squandered.

“Bureaucrat capitalism and vested interests triumph once again in the rejection of the appointment of Gina Lopez,” Reyes said.

Reyes said compromises may have been made along the way and questioned how such a rejection can happen under the Duterte regime that wields the majority in both houses of Congress.

“Big business interests continue to hold sway in the Duterte regime, both in the executive and legislative branches,” he said.

Reyes encouraged Lopez to continue her environmental advocacy even as a private citizen once more.

“We thank Gina for her outstanding service to the Filipino people. She is more than welcome to continue her activist role for the environment, in the mass movement and even in the peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP,” Reyes said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Panels begin formal ceasefire negotiations

NOORDWIJK, The Netherlands—The reciprocal ceasefire committees of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) negotiating panels has begun their formal negotiations on at least two proposed truce modes this morning.

Said to be the most contentious issue on the approved agenda in this fourth round of talks, the parties ceasefire committees are discussing the GRP’s bilateral ceasefire proposal it first submitted at the third round of formal talks in Rome, Italy last January and the NDFP’s joint unilateral ceasefire declarations to be bound by a memorandum of understanding.

The panels have earlier discussed GRP’s new bilateral ceasefire proposal before the formal opening of this round following new instructions from Malacañan Palace in Manila.

GRP President Rodrigo Duterte has made a signed bilateral ceasefire agreement with the NDFP one of his four “barest conditionalities” in order for the peace talks to continue.

The conditionalities have caused the delay in the opening ceremony of the fourth round by a day to allow for the two parties to hold informal discussions on a bilateral interim ceasefire agreement demanded by Duterte.

GRP chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III in a Malacañan news briefing last March 31 said he received only one marching order from Duterte: “Get me a ceasefire agreement.”

In his opening remarks at yesterday’s opening ceremony, however, NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison emphasized that the ceasefire agreement should not come before a comprehensive agreement on socio-economic reforms.

“It is possible for the GRP and NDFP Negotiating Panels to forge and sign the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) and the consequent joint ceasefire agreement,” Sison said.

“But I wish to stress as a matter of principle that the people demand that CASER be a step ahead of the joint ceasefire agreement, unless these agreements can be signed at the same time by the panels and then by the principals,” he said.

NDFP chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili echoed Sison’s statement, stressing the issue of ceasefire should not be pursued as an end in itself.

“Ceasefires, whether unilateral or bilateral, are just a means to an end. Its main purpose is to create conditions conducive to reaching agreements on basic re- forms that are satisfactory to both sides,” Agcaoili said.

“The NDFP believes it is possible to have a bilateral ceasefire agreement that conforms to the position that simultaneous and reciprocal declarations of unilateral ceasefire can be agreed upon and bound by a Memorandum of Understanding that shall be issued at the end of the fourth round of formal talks,” he added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

 

‘Peace negotiations necessary to address roots of armed conflict’–Joma Sison

Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison delivered the first remark for the NDFP in the opening ceremony of the fourth round of formal peace negotiations with the GRP, calling the peace talks as necessary in addressing the roots of the armed conflict.

As expected, Sison in his remarks laid down a most comprehensive blueprint in pushing forward the peace negotiations.

“I continue to be optimistic that within this year, it is possible for the GRP and NDFP Negotiating Panels to forge and sign the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) and the consequent joint ceasefire agreement,” Sison said. (Featured photo by Nwel Saturay)

LARAWAN: Pag-uusap hinggil sa tigil-putukan

NOORDWIJK, The Netherlands
April 2, 2017

GRP and NDFP panels continue ceasefire discussions

NOORDWIJK, The Netherlands–Peace negotiators of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) resumed their panel-to-panel discussions late in the afternoon today to explore ways to address the proposed bilateral ceasefire agreement.

As of 4:30 in the afternoon local time (10:30 in the evening, Philippine time), the panels allowed some members of the Philippine media covering the talks to take photos.

Prof. Jose Ma. Sison was observed to be in a lively mood during the photo-opportunity.

 

LARAWAN: Pag-uusap hinggil sa agenda

 

 

NOORDWIJK, The Netherlands
April 2, 2017

CPP holds 2nd congress; elects ‘younger’ Central Committee

THE Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) announced it has elected a new leadership in a congress held at a guerrilla zone last October 24 to November 7, electing a new and “younger” Central Committee and Political Bureau.

In a communiqué released today, the 48th founding anniversary of its New People’s Army, the CPP said its second congress was attended by 120 of its key cadres from all over the country.

“For the first time in nearly five decades, key leaders and cadres representing the Party’s close to seventy thousand members, were assembled to strengthen the Party’s unity, amend its program and constitution based on accumulated victories and lessons and elect a new set of leaders,” the CPP said.

The CPP said cadres from five Mindanao regions constituted around 45 per cent of the regional delegates while those from Luzon and the Visayas constituted 40 and 14 per cent respectively in reflection of the number of its regional memberships.

The other delegates represented the CPP’s central leading organs and its commissions, the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist group said.

“Guided by the theme ‘Greater unity, greater victories,’ the Party’s Second Congress took a long view of the Party’s 48 year history, took stock of the current objective and subjective conditions and reaffirmed the Party’s determination to advance the national democratic revolution to greater heights,” the CPP said.

The congress was guarded by a battalion-sized NPA fighters and supported by peasants and indigenous minority groups in the area, it added.

Read full communique HERE.

Updating its constitution and general program

The congress amended the 48-year old constitution written by Jose Maria Sison and his CPP co-founders, the communiqué announced.

The preamble containing the Party’s basic principles and analysis of Philippine society, its national democratic line for waging a revolution and socialist construction, the group’s history against revisionism, strategy and tactics for pursuing armed struggle, and establishing a people’s democratic government were amended, the CPP said.

New articles were also introduced to the old Party charter defining the party’s role in united front formations and struggles, enumeration of the economic classes in relation to party membership, as well as permission to allow foreigners to become CPP members.

The CPP now also allows members who have reached the age of 70 to retire from Party work without losing their membership.  They are also entitled to subsistence support and medical assistance, the communiqué said.

The Party’s updated general program called on all Filipino communists to “be ready to sacrifice their lives if necessary in the struggle to bring about a new Philippines that is completely independent, democratic, united, just and prosperous.”

To ensure the vigor and vibrancy of the Party, the congress also introduced a provision to its general program to ensure its new Central Committee shall have a balance of young, middle-aged and senior cadres.

‘Younger’ Central Committee

With 60 per cent of the delegates of age 45 to 59 years old, more than half of the newly-elected central committee members are from the young and middle-aged cadres of the Party, the communiqué said.

“(This is) ensuring that the Party leadership will remain vibrant, tightly-linked with the lower levels of leadership and capable of leading the practical work and day-to-day tasks of the Party, especially in waging revolutionary armed struggle against the reactionary state,” the CPP said.

“The combination of senior Party members with the young and junior Party cadres will ensure the ideological, political and organizational training of a new generation of Party leaders who will be at the helm of the Party in the coming years,” it added.

The CPP tasked its senior cadres to transfer knowledge and skills to their younger comrades “to help guide the present work of the younger generation of Party leaders.”

 Honoring ‘great communist Joma Sison’, heroes and martyrs

Congress delegates paid tribute to its founder Jose Maria Sison and all its martyrs in its nearly five decades of revolution that grew through the decades in spite of brutal anti-insurgency campaigns against its members and fighters by five Manila governments, including Ferdinand Marcos’ martial rule.

In a resolution, the CPP congress extolled Sison as a “great communist thinker, leader, teacher and guide of the Filipino proletariat and torch bearer of the international communist movement,” and recognized “his immense contribution to the Philippine revolution and the international working class movement.”

The CPP also it is resolved to continue seeking Sison’s counsel and take guidance from his insights on the ideological, political and organizational aspects of the Party’s work, endorsing his writings as basic reference and study material of the Party.

Sison founded the Communist Party of the Philippines on December 26, 1968 in the tri-boundary of Alaminos, Bani and Mabini in the province of Pangasinan with 11 others: Monico Atienza, Rey Casipe, Leoncio Co, Manuel Collantes, Arthur Garcia, Herminigildo Garcia, Ruben Guevara, Art Pangilinan, Nilo Tayag, Fernando Tayag, Ibarra Tubianosa.  Jose Luneta was recognized as the 13th member who was elected to its first Central Committee in absentia as he was in China on party business.

The congress also honored all CPP heroes and martyrs “who served as models of selfless dedication and served the Party to their last breath.”

It also approved the official Filipino lyrics of the Internationale, the Party’s anthem. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

 

Joma to Rody: Calm down, let’s talk

NATIONAL Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison asked Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) President Rodrigo Duterte to allow efforts to clear the air in the face of escalating tension between the two parties following the Duterte government’s declaration of an all-out war against the Left.

Sison proposed to his former student “to consult thoroughly with his negotiating panel and the peace advocates in his own cabinet and others outside of his government and encourage and allow back-channelling efforts to clarify misunderstandings and solve immediately the current problems.” Read more

Joma terror delisting, free land distribution among agreements in third round of talks

ROME, Italy—The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and government negotiators are set to end their third round of formal talks today on a successful note with advances on the substantive agenda and new goodwill measures included in the prospective Rome Joint Statement.

NDFP chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili and his Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) counterpart Silvestre Bello III said their joint statement will include the signing of the supplemental guidelines on the Joint Monitoring Committee as well as agreements on the ground rules for future negotiations on socio-economic and political and constitutional reforms.

They also agreed to hold a special meeting in The Netherlands in February 22 or 24 to discuss the GRP proposal for a bilateral ceasefire.

“This round is turning out to be a success, despite the apparent sabotage with the killing of the activists in Negros Occidental and Surigao del Norte and the attack on the NPA (New People’s Army) encampment in North Cotabato,” Agcaoili said.

Joma Sison delisting

Bello for his part revealed that the joint statement shall include a request to the United States of America (USA) that NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison be delisted from its terror list.

“We have a basis (for such request), considering he is in the process, the peace talks, which negates the character of a terrorist,” Bello said.

Bello said it is important for Sison to be able to travel outside of Europe in response to GRP President Rodrigo Duterte’s statement he is willing to meet his former professor in any neutral Asian country.

NDFP panel member Benito Tiamzon and consultant Wilma Austria welcomed the move saying it would help in the negotiations.

“We have long been saying that the revolutionary movement, the Communist Party of the Philippines, the NPA, most especially Prof. Sison are not terrorists,” Tiamzon said.

“It is also important that President Duterte is saying he is independent of the US and this is one concrete step showing he really is independent,” Tiamzon added.

Sison has yet to issue a statement on the development.

Painstaking SER negotiations

NDFP socio-economic reforms Reciprocal Working Committee (RWC) spokesperson and agrarian and rural development focal person Randall Echanis said their bilateral meetings with their GRP counterparts have taken a few steps forward.

“For the first time, the GRP has submitted a comprehensive draft and we have agreed that both our drafts would be discussed with a matrix comparing both versions,” Echanis said.

Echanis also said that the Preamble and Declaration of Principles mostly based on the NDFP draft has already been agreed upon by the Reciprocal Workings Committees (RWC).

“We have identified commonalities on the Bases, Scope and Applicability provisions of our respective drafts and these are three important parts that our bilateral negotiations have disposed with,” Echanis said.

Echanis also revealed that the GRP has agreed in principle that there should be free land distribution to farmers, subject to consultations with other government agencies.

“We are for free land distribution while the GRP is for land distribution at least cost to the farmers.  We met halfway by saying the compensation should not come from the farmers but from the government,” he said.

“They said the NDFP draft’s use of the word of ‘confiscation’ is unconstitutional.  We clarified that land grabbed with use of violence and intimidation should be confiscated without compensation but we have no question with just compensation for landlords whose land was accumulated through just means,” Echanis clarified.

Echanis said the NDFP had been meeting GRP halfway in their negotiations as long as the essence and principle of agrarian reform is not compromised.

The closing ceremony of the third round is expected to be held at three o’clock local time (nine o’clock in the evening, Philippine time).

The fourth round of NDFP-GRP formal peace talks shall be held in April in Oslo, Norway. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)