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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Palace denies Andal’s claim on backchannel talks with Reds

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A former chief of the Philippine Coconut Authority claimed he was tasked by the President to open backchannel talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines, only for the Palace to deny it hours after.

“The President ordered me to resume the talks because he has been stressing that he, as a president, should be considered a friend and not an enemy, even to communist rebels,” former PCA chief Avelino Andal said Tuesday.

“He wants me to have backchannel talks with the leaders of CPP, including, of course, Jose Ma. Sison who’s on top of everything. But we also need to do the groundwork for those leaders who are in the country,” Andal said in Filipino.

READ: Resumption of peace talks with Reds slim—Lorenzana

Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo, however, said he knew nothing of Andal’s mission.

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“He is not involved in the negotiation process,” Panelo said but added that backchannel talks would not be unusual, saying the President is open to talks as long as the communist New People’s Army stop their attacks and extortion activities.

“Enough of these ambuscades, enough of these extortion activities and we will sit down. And most likely, they may finally listen to the urgings of the President. I think they are also tired of fighting the government,” he added.

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said there was no such order from the President.

“It is fake news. The President says he never ordered him to do so,” Lorenzana told Palace reporters.

Andal, a current member of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, said Duterte personally instructed him in Manila last week.

“I kept mum on this. I didn’t know the media will know about it. I would even prefer not to talk about this until I have successfully delivered what the President has asked me to do,” he said.

He said he has already reached out to communist leaders, who were “extremely glad” to find out that the government has opened the door for peace anew.

“I will talk to the people who are involved in this. I would also persuade them that the President is serious in his desire to have peace in the country,” he said.

Andal said the President might have chosen him for his connections and background with leftist groups.

He said he was a member of the CPP decades ago when President Ferdinand Marcos imposed martial law.

He said he has not yet coordinated with the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.

In November 2018, National Democratic Front of the Philippines consultants were supposed to return to Manila to have informal talks with Duterte.

But NFDP leader Fidel Agcaoili said the Duterte administration’s peace negotiators informed him and his fellow NDFP consultant Luis Jalandoni to cancel their trip for unknown reasons.

Panelo said the NDFP leaders only feared that they might be arrested once they set foot in the country.

In November 2017, peace talks between the government and communist rebels bogged down after Duterte walked away from the negotiating table, repeatedly blaming the rebels for violations of the unilateral ceasefire.

Duterte then had imposed a number of conditions for a revival of the talks, but Sison shrugged off the government’s push for localized peace talks, labeling it as a “cheap trick” that has failed many times.

In the town of Sibagat, local officials declared the NPA persona non grata after communist rebels abducted 14 militiamen and two army troopers on Dec. 19, 2018.

The declaration was signed by Sibagat Mayor Maria Liza Evangelista, and through Municipal Resolution 137-18, approved by the Sibagat’s Sanguniang Bayan on Dec. 21 last year, two days after the NPA abduction.

“The kidnapping and abduction perpetrated by the NPAs is a manifestation of betrayal of achieving peace, thus disrupting the peace and security of the community,” the resolution said.

On Tuesday, the Quezon City Regional Trial Court has dismissed the illegal possession of firearms case filed against NDF consultant Rafael D. Baylosis and his companion Guillermo Roque.

In a decision released Tuesday, RTC Branch 100 Presiding Judge Editha G. Mina-Aguba ordered the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Taguig City to release Baylosis.

Roque, who posted a PP120,000 bail for his temporary liberty, was also cleared and allowed to get back the bail he posted.

“The search being illegal, the evidence confiscated cannot be used as evidence against the two accused,” Aguba said, stressing that any evidence obtained in violation of the right against unreasonable searches and seizures shall be inadmissible for any purpose in any proceeding.

“This rule prohibits the issuance of general warrants that encourage law enforces to go on fishing expeditions. (I)t is viewed that the confiscation of the subject items is illegal. It is not a product of a search incidental to a lawful arrest, or a stop and frisk search, or the plain view doctrine,” she said.

Police charged Baylosis and Roque with illegal weapons possession after they were arrested at the corner of Aurora Boulevard and Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City on Jan. 31, 2018.

Police said they found two .45 caliber pistols and a fragmentation grenade inside a plastic bag containing brown rice from the two suspects. With PNA

READ: Satur, other CPP leaders not yet off the hook—DOJ

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