Agcaoili named NDF chief peace negotiator

CLARK FREEPORT, Philippines – Fidel Agcaoili has been named chairman of the National Democratic Front (NDF) negotiating panel following the resignation of Luis Jalandoni. 

Benito Tiamzon was also named member of the negotiating panel.

In a statement yesterday, the NDF said: “Comrade Agcaoili has been serving as the vice chairperson of the NDFP negotiating panel in the past years. The national leadership of the NDFP is grateful for the valuable service that comrade Jalandoni has given to the peace negotiations. He continues to be involved in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations as a senior adviser.”

In a statement, NDF chief political consultant Jose Ma. Sison reminded President Duterte of his commitment to declare a general amnesty for all political prisoners.

“The release of all political prisoners would also serve as a very big incentive for a stable kind of ceasefire,” he said.

Sison said Duterte told Agcaoili in a meeting that the most expeditious way to release political prisoners is through an amnesty proclamation. Before the first round of peace talks in Oslo, Norway last August, Duterte ordered the release of 19 political prisoners, including couple Benito and Wilma Tiamzon, to enable them to participate as consultants in the peace negotiations.

Duterte said the release was a gesture of goodwill to the NDF.

The Communist Party of the Philippines has urged the government to release around 550 political prisoners nationwide, most of them reportedly   peasants and workers.

Sison said the amnesty and release of all political prisoners is an act of righting the violations of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and the Hernandez political offense doctrine.

The NDF said that in a joint statement last Aug. 26, the government and the NDF agreed that the government panel “will immediately recommend to President Duterte the issuance of an amnesty proclamation, subject to concurrence of Congress, for the release of prisoners who are listed by the NDFP and who have been arrested, imprisoned, charged and/or convicted for alleged acts or omissions within the ambit of the Revised Penal Code or special laws in connection with alleged crimes in pursuit of one’s political beliefs.”

It also noted a provision in the agreement that “the parties will discuss the content and language of the amnesty proclamation.”

Martial Law victims also see a need to immediately release all political prisoners through general amnesty, especially the ailing and elderly political prisoners, those detained for more than a decade and women political prisoners.

Fr. Dionito Cabillas, Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) spokesman, said their continuing incarceration is a grave injustice not only to the political prisoners but to their families as well.

“They have suffered long enough because of fabricated cases filed against them,” he said. “It is about time that they walk free.”

Cabillas cited the situation of Maria Miradel Torres, a political prisoner in the Taguig City Jail, who had to wean her then six-month-old son from breastfeeding prematurely because she was not allowed to be with him. 

“Three family members were convicted for trumped-up murder charges for fighting for a land they own which is being land-grabbed by a landlord-politico,” he said.

Moreta Alegre, 69, is detained at the Correctional Institution for Women in Mandaluyong, while husband Jesus, 70, and son Selman, 40, are in the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa for more than 11 years now.

Cabillas said Ramon Argente, now 56 years old, suffered a heart attack and has a slight heart enlargement.

“He was preparing for a heart bypass on Feb. 18, 2013 when he was arrested and faced trumped-up charges of kidnapping, arson, murder and frustrated murder,”  he said.

Argente’s health worsened in detention at the Camarines Norte Provincial Jail, he added.

Cabillas said in 2015, he was brought to the Philippine Heart Center from prison where he had a heart triple bypass surgery.

“He had to stay longer at the Intensive Care Unit because he had pneumonia,” he said.

Cabillas said the   government should adhere to and implement the CARHRIHL that the government and the NDF agreed to reaffirm during the first round of talks in Oslo last August.

“In the first place, the arrest and continued detention of these political prisoners are clear violation of the CARHRIHL, so they should therefore be released,” he said.

The government and the NDF resumed formal talks yesterday in Oslo. – With Edith Regalado, Rhodina Villanueva