THE formal negotiations with the communist rebels were again pushed back to the third week of August to effect the release of 11 JASIG-protected detained consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, Peace Process Adviser Jesus Dureza said Tuesday.
“In case of the CPP, the formal talks have been firmly set on August 20 to 27 by the panel led by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello,” Dureza told reporters.
“We look forward to engaging with our counterparts on the other side of the table by August 20.”
Dureza said there could be a release “of some 11 leaders of the CPP/NPA/NDF who are presently detained and who will participate in the talks.”
But he said that while he could not reveal their names, President Rodrigo Duterte “has already directed Justice Secretary [Vitaliano] Aguirre to comply with the legal procedures to effect the release of those in the list.”
“[The] courts will make a determination in the end because some still have cases pending their temporary release,” Dureza said.
Saying that the NDFP was prepared to engage the government in the peace negotiations, Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison had earlier said they would work with the government negotiators “based on the assumption that previous signed statements are affirmed and 109 political prisoners are released ahead of more than 400 others.”
Sison said further that the rebel group’s armed wing, the New Peoples’ Army, would not lay down its arms and would continue with the protracted war in the countryside.
In a speech before members of the Air Force in early July, Duterte said he was willing to issue safe-conduct passes and grant political amnesty but “only to four top leaders” of the Communist Party of the Philippines who are in jail, “as long as the rebels lay down their arms and give way to the peace process initiated by the government.”
Duterte likewise stressed that he was not ready to release everyone unless the talks between the government and the reds were “successful.”
It was Sison who proposed for more time to the government panel, rescheduling the start of the formal peace talks from “from July 27 to August 2 or from August 15 to 22,” for the Duterte government to comply with the agreement signed in Oslo.
In the same press briefing, Dureza also announced that incoming Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and incoming House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez will join the first formal talks in Oslo to be held after Duterte’s first State-of-the-Nation address on July 25.
Among those reportedly included in the list of NDFP negotiators were Allan Jazmines, Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria.
Government negotiators say that a general amnesty is possible through legislation, or amnesty could be granted by the President of the Philippines. In both cases, however, Congress would have to approve the amnesty grant.