The National Democratic Front of the Philippines on Saturday said the move of the Office of the Solicitor General to ask courts to cancel bail bonds and order the arrest of its consultants was “premature and precipitate,” as the government has yet to formally terminate the peace negotiations with the communists.
In a statement, NDFP Legal Consultant Edre Olalia said there is “yet no written formal notice of termination properly addressed to the NDFP, as mandatorily required by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees [JASIG],” which is a solemn bilateral agreement that protects negotiators, consultants, staffers, security, and other personnel of both negotiating parties.
“The OSG move appears not in concert with the standing pronouncements of the GRP Panel and OPAPP—the official and authorized representatives of the GRP in the peace negotiations—that (a) the talks are not yet officially terminated despite the verbal pronouncements of the President [Rodrigo Duterte] as GRP Principal, as there is yet no such written notice and (b) the JASIG still remains in full force and effect,” Olalia said.
On Friday, Solicitor General Jose Calida asked several courts to order the rearrest of 21 NDF peace consultants—who were detained for different criminal charges but temporarily released to participate in peace talks with the government in Oslo, Norway—after the peace talks failed.
Moving to rearrest the NDFP consultants “is a circumvention and even violation of a solemn binding bilateral agreement [in the JASIG] entered into by the government,” Olalia stressed.
“It ties the hands of the President, and preempts his flexibility and prerogative to eventually and ultimately resume talks or peace negotiations anyway, notwithstanding the current circumstances, especially after sobriety has prevailed, to save the peace process and go back to the reasons why it must be pursued despite periodic challenges along the way,” he added.
Still, the Duterte administration has asked the courts to cancel the bail bonds and order the arrest of the NDFP consultants facing criminal cases with Duterte ordering the termination of the backchannel talks with the Front, which represents the communist insurgents.
Calida said the conditional release granted them by the courts was only for the Oslo peace negotiations, including backchannel talks that Duterte had ordered canceled after the NDFP’s military arm, the New People’s Army, attacked government troops in several provinces.
The chief state lawyer cited the Supreme Court resolution dated Aug. 2, 2016, which allowed the provisional liberty of NDFP leaders Satur Ocampo, Randall Echanis and Vicente Ladlad.
“One of the conditions provided that once the peace negotiations are terminated, their bonds are deemed automatically canceled,” the Solicitor General said.
“Since all judicial decisions form part of the law of the land, the courts can now issue recommitment orders, as these NDF consultants are similarly situated to Echanis and Ladlad,” he said.
Calida said the President’s declaration during the State of the Nation Address that the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA rebels are enemies of the state “signifies that any peace negotiations with them… must officially end.”
CPP-NPA leaders Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, who are facing multiple murder and kidnapping charges before the Manila and Quezon City regional trial courts, were among the NDFP consultants released on bail to join the Oslo negotiations.