A few hours after news of the arrest of a senior National Democratic Front of the Philippines’ (NDFP) peace consultant became public, activists trooped to Camp Karingal in Quezon City to demand for his and his companions’ release.
Vicente Ladlad’s detention despite his safety and immunity guarantees from arrest and surveillance is an attack on the peace process, the activists said. (Video by Joseph Cuevas)
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)
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said reasons are abundant for the peace negotiations if only Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) President Rodrigo Duterte listens to reason.
In his quick reply to Duterte’s challenge to be given reasons to resume peace negotations, Sison said his former student can no longer be swayed by any reason based on the latter’s repeated termination of the talks and despite NDFP’s standing policy to be ready and willing to negotiate.
“You are already crazed by your drive for absolute power and absolute corruption. Every day you rage with your favorite call to your armed minions: Kill, Kill, Kill. You offer no solution to the crying problems of the people but further exploitation and oppression,” Sison said Monday.
Last Sunday, Duterte challenged, “Communists, Jose Ma. Sison, give me a good reason to go back to the bargaining table. If there is none, or if it’s just a repeat of what we have discussed earlier, then that will not suffice.”
Duterte demanded that the Communists should give him “more” to convince him to resume the peace talks as he is “greedy” for proof of their sincerity.
“I need more, I need more. I might be greedy. But I am greedy because I’m [a] worker of the Republic of the Philippines,” Duterte said.
Last June, however, it was not NDFP’s sincerity that Duterte cited as his reason for his last cancellation of formal peace talks.
As announced by Presidential peace adviser on the peace process, Duterte wanted three months to study the documents mutually crafted by both GRP and NDFP negotiators and to “engage the bigger peace table, the Filipino people.”
Set for signing by the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels was an Interim Peace Agreement package that included agreements on agrarian reform and rural development, national industrialization and economic development, a coordinated unilateral ceasefire, and an amnesty proclamation for all NDFP-listed political prisoners.
In his subsequent speeches regarding the peace talks, Duterte also demanded that the peace talks should be held in the Philippines if he would agree to its resumption.
Duterte eventually revived previous government’s localized peace talks scheme instead, which was unanimously rejected by Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army (NPA) and NDFP formations throughout the country.
Sison said Duterte’s localized peace talks scheme are nothing fake surrender exercises.
“Your paramilitary agents are the ones posing as the surrenderers,” Sison told Duterte.
“Every local command of the NPA has condemned you offers of bribes for surrender. They have expressed their determination to fight and finish your tyranny, corruption and mendacity,” Sison added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
A lawyer for National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant Adelberto Silva and his four companions slammed the Laguna Prosecutor’s Office’s decision to keep them in jail and charging them with illegal possession of explosives.
Public Interest Law Center managing counsel Rachel Pastores said Laguna chief prosecutor Maria Victoria Dado’s decision to amend the inquest resolution is part of “underhanded tactics and unforgiveable maneuvers” against her clients.
“While charges for illegal possession of firearms were maintained against only two – Silva and driver Julio N. Lusania – the prosecutor amended the inquest resolution and vacated the earlier release order for Hedda L. Calderon, Ireneo O. Atadero, and Edisel R. Legaspi,” Pastores said in a statement.
“The charges against all being non-bailable, none of them may be released,” she added.
Silva and companions were arrested last October 15 after being blocked by a combined police and military team in Sta. Cruz, Laguna while on their way to a peace consultation.
The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group claimed guns, explosives and ammunition were hidden in the car the five rode in.
“Obviously, there are concerted efforts to ensure the five remain behind bars, on fake charges, in wan support of a fake destabilization narrative – all lies and jest,” Pastores said.
Both the Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines alleged Silva was part of the so-called “Red October Plot” to oust President Rodrigo Duterte.
Silva denied the allegation.
Silva is vice-chairperson of the NDFP Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms who actively participated in both formal and back channel peace negotiations with the Duterte government since 2016.
The NDFP Negotiating Panel said Silva should be released as a Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees-protected peace consultant. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
Leaders of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace panel took turns lambasting new Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo, calling him “amnesiac,” “befuddled,” and, worse, “cheap shyster.”
Reacting from Panelo’s challenge to NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison to “walk the talk” and support President Rodrigo Duterte’s “call for conciliation and peace,” the Left’s chief peace negotiator Fidel Agcaoili said the new Malacañan mouthpiece conveniently suffers from amnesia.
Agcaoili reminded Panelo it was Duterte who terminated the peace negotiations four times since May 2017 and foiled every attempt to resume these through back channel talks.
“At any rate, during the third termination in November 2017, President Duterte issued Proclamation 360, ending the peace negotiations,” Agcaoili said.
Duterte has not revoked his proclamation even after committees under the NDFP and Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) negotiators worked out a number of “unprecedented agreements” on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development and National Industrialization and Economic Development, which constitute the bedrock sections of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER).
Also hammered out was an Amnesty Proclamation for all NDFP-listed political prisoners to be signed and certified by President Duterte as urgent to obtain the concurrence of Congress in order to effect their expeditious release.
Agcaoili added there was an agreement for a Coordinated Unilateral Ceasefire (CUC) which would have taken effect upon signing by the Negotiating Panels.
The CUC was conceptualized to evolve into a bilateral ceasefire.
“Together, these three agreements would have constituted the Interim Peace Agreement to be signed at the scheduled resumption of formal talks in Oslo last June 28 to 30,” Agcaoili said.
“Never have the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations advanced to this level. But for his own vile reasons, President Duterte has chosen to terminate the talks right at the brink of all these breakthroughs,” he added.
The NDFP chief negotiator said Duterte wasted time and squandered efforts by both NDFP and GRP negotiators, not to mention the lives that could have been saved on both sides of the armed conflict.
Agcaoili paid little significance to Duterte’s latest speech in Davao City that “merely mentioned surrender talks, and enticements to individual NPA guerrillas who capitulate.”
“Nowhere does he mention the meaningful reforms that should be in place to address the roots of the armed conflict,” he said.
Who is committing crimes?
In a statement issued over the weekend, Panelo also said the Duterte government cannot sit with Communist leaders in the same negotiating table while the latter’s armed comrades continue fighting.
“These include the ambushing of our armed forces and innocent civilians while enforcing their so-called revolutionary taxes and destroying the properties of individuals or entities who refuse to give in to their orders,” Panelo said.
Agcaoili replied that contrary to Panelo’s lies, it is the government that are “fraudulently committing criminal acts and bringing harm to our people.”
He cited the massacre of nine farm workers in Sagay City, Negoris Occidental last Saturday as a worsening of “the festering social problems that feed the fires of armed conflict.”
“As a testament to the utter failure of the GRP to effect social justice, the land remains undistributed 18 years after the sugar workers first petitioned the DAR for the estate to be placed under land reform coverage,” he said.
Sison for his part said Panelo exposed himself as “a cheap shyster who engages in outright lying and shouting in a futile attempt to deny or cast doubt on the truth of the Duterte-style massacre of the nine in Sagay.” # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines’ (NDFP) Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms (RWC-SER) condemned the massacre of nine peasants, including two minors, in Sagay City, Negros Occidental Saturday night.
The group tasked to co-craft with its government counterparts free land distribution programs for poor farmers blamed the failure of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to implement social justice through genuine agrarian reform.
“The incident underscores the evils of the hacienda system,” NDFP RWC-SER chairperson Juliet de Lima said in a statement.
Nine farmers, including two minors, were fired upon by around 40 armed men at Hacienda Nene, Sagay City. They were subsequently shot on their heads and three victims’s bodies were burned by their killers.
Members of the National Federation of Sugar Workers, the victims started a land occupation campaign earlier to plant vegetables to tide them over the expected dead season of the sugarcane crops.
“As long as a handful of landlords monopolize land ownership and perpetuate their power through force, the Sagay 9 will not be the last victims of agrarian-related violence. Agrarian unrest will persist as the peasant masses continue to suffer from widespread poverty, high indebtedness, severe hunger and malnutrition,” de Lima added.
The NDFP RWC-SER also said President Rodrigo Duterte and the militarists in his cabinet have blood on their hands for terminating the peace negotiations that would have resulted in the adoption of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER)’s section on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ARRD).
“The draft ARRD, which was scheduled for signing last November before Duterte abruptly cancelled the peace talks provides for the free distribution of big landholdings and landed estates including lands targeted by the government for distribution, haciendas that are under the control of private individuals or entities, disputed lands with local agrarian reform and peasant struggles and lands already occupied by farmers through various forms of land cultivation and collective farming activities,” de Lima said.
“The break-up of land monopolies and free land distribution are the just, necessary and urgent corrective measures to the centuries-old social injustices suffered by the peasantry,” she added.
A day before the massacre, Duterte admitted in his speech that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)-led revolution would not go away within his lifetime.
“When I die, the NPA (New People’s Army) will still be here. When Joma Sison dies, the NPA will still be here,” Duterte said, referring to the CPP founder and NDFP chief political consultant.
Sison for his part said Duterte is correct in saying that the NPA will continue to exist even after the professor and his former student are gone “…if by implication he means that the root causes of the armed conflict must be addressed and solved by social, economic and political reforms.”
“It is up to him to end his position of having terminated the peace negotiations with Proclamation 360. The standing policy of the NDFP is to negotiate with the GRP anytime he is ready to resume the peace negotiations in accordance with The Hague Joint Declaration and further agreements,” Sison said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
Three companions of National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant Adelberto Silva arrested with him last Monday, October 15, were ordered freed Thursday after charges of illegal possession of firearms against them have been dismissed.
Public Interest Law Center (PILC) managing counsel Rachel Pastores said that the temporary release of Hedda Calderon, Ireneo Atadero and Edisel Legaspi is allowed pending further investigation of an additional charge against them.
Pastores said that additional charges of illegal possession of explosives were referred for preliminary investigation by Laguna provincial prosecutor Ma. Victoria Dado.
The three were arrested along with Silva and their driver Julio Lusania by combined elements of the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.
The CIDG said the two .45 caliber handguns, three hand grenades, a claymore mine-type improvised explosive device and assorted ammunition were seized from the five during their arrest.
Silva, however, told Kodao that the guns and explosives were “planted”.
“PILC expects the CIDG-NCR to implement the release soonest possible, in respect of due process and presumption of innocence of all detained, most especially the wrongfully-accused,” Pastores said.
The CIDG, however, still has to abide by the resolution and release the three.
In an Inquirer report, PILC’s Atty. Kristina Conti denied that Silva is part of any destabilization plot against President Rodrigo Duterte, such as the so-called Red October plot the military described by the military.
“This story is laughable but we are not amused,” Conti said.
Conti said the Calderon, Atadero and Legaspi were consulting with Silva who is a leading member of the NDFP’s Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms in its peace process with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines.
Facing multiple murder charges for an alleged massacre in Inopacan, Leyte, Silva was released in August 2016 to enable his participation in the first formal talks between the GRP and the NDFP in Oslo, Norway.
His temporary bail was suspended last January, however, after President Duterte cancelled the peace talks. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultant and company faced inquest proceedings at Sta Cruz, Laguna Tuesday afternoon following their arrest by police and military personnel Monday afternoon.
According to the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, Silva and company had with them two handguns, three grenades, an improvised claymore mine and assorted ammunition when accosted.
Silva, however, denied the charge, saying these were planted by the police.
A leading member of the NDFP’s Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms, Silva is supposedly immune from surveillance, threats, harassment and arrest under the GRP-NDFP Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity and Safety Guarantees. # (Report by Joseph Cuevas)
Detained National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) consultant Adelberto Silva said the guns and explosives the Philippine National Police (PNP) and the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) allege were seized from them were “planted”.
Charged with illegal possession of firearms in an inquest proceeding in Sta. Cruz, Laguna late Tuesday afternoon, October 16, Silva and companions Edisel Legaspi, Hedda Calderon, Ireneo Atadero and their hired driver said the two .45 caliber handguns, three hand grenades, an improvised claymore mine and bullets presented by the police and military were “suddenly found inside their car” when they were accosted in the afternoon of October 14 in Barangay Pagsawitan in Sta. Cruz.
Silva and the others also refused to sign documents that said the items were seized from them.
Silva’s lawyers from the Public Interest Law Center said Sta. Cruz prosecutor Ma. Victoria Dado ordered the PNP Criminal Investigation and Detection Group to produce today the result of physical and chemical examinations from Camp Crame of the supposed firearms and explosives seized from Silva and company.
According to the PILC lawyers, Silva and his companions were arrested when their car was blocked by five private vehicles at around twelve noon last October 15.
At gunpoint, the five were ordered to alight from their car and lay down on the ground. After several minutes, the police and the military declared they found the guns and explosives inside the car.
Silva said in an interview that his arrest was a clear violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees as well as the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the NDFP.
Silva has actively participated in the peace negotiations between the two parties since August 2016.
Silva also denounced the AFP and PNP’s Inter-Agency Committee on Legal Action (IACLA) he said was revived to put a veneer of legality to the government’s intensified attacks and crackdowns against peace negotiators and activists.
Human rights group Karapatan earlier described IACLA as the new version of the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo-era Inter-Agency Legal Action Group (IALAG) that UN special rapporteur Philip Alston recommended abolished in 2007. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) chief peace negotiator Fidel Agcaoili called for the release of Adelberto Silva who was arrested with four others Monday afternoon by Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) forces in Sta. Cruz, Laguna.
“It’s a big setback on the peace process and the NDFP calls on the GRP to release the five detainees,” Agcaoili told Kodao.
Agcaoili said they strongly condemn the arrest of a “leading member” of the NDFP Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms in its peace process with the GRP.
He added that Silva has been conducting consultations with representatives of different sectors of society in connection with the prospective Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER).
Agcaoili said that even the GRP is conducting unilateral consultations on the substantive agenda.
The NDFP chief negotiator told Kodao that both sides agreed in June 2018 when the GRP suspended the scheduled resumption of formal talks to study the draft agreements and that the two Parties (GRP and NDFP) would conduct separate and unilateral consultations with the people and their respective constituencies on the progress of the talks.
President Rodrigo Duterte cancelled the fifth round of formal talks for the fifth time in June in order for him to “study the documents” forged by GRP negotiators with the NDFP.
Presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza also said that, in cancelling the formal round of talks last June, Duterte wanted to consult the general public he said are part of the “bigger peace table.”
“And they prevent NDFP negotiators who are doing the same,” Agcaoili said.
Silva was arrested with three other activists and their driver by Philippine National Police Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the Intelligence Services of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
The five were taken to the CIDG headquarters in Camp Crame in Quezon City last night.
They have been taken back to Sta. Cruz, Laguna Tuesday afternoon for inquest proceedings on charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives.
As NDFP peace consultant, Silva is supposedly immune from surveillance, arrest and harassment under the GRP-NDFP Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees.
GRP Negotiating Panel chairperson and labor secretary Silvestre Bello III has yet to respond to Kodao’s requests for a statement.
Bello is reportedly in Al Khobar to meet with overseas Filipino workers in eastern Saudi Arabia. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)