Free Roy Erecre!

NDFP Central Visayas strongly condemns the illegal arrest and detention of NDFP Consultant Roy Arboladera Erecre. Comrade Erecre has been duly verified by the chairperson of the NDFP Negotiating Panel Luis Jalandoni as the holder of NDFP Document of Identification No. ND978243 under the assumed name Vide Alguna.

We demand his immediate and unconditional release. Roy Erecre was on short medical leave.

He was still undergoing completion of his follow-up medical check-up upon his arrest. These records including doctor's prescriptions were part of the documents conficated from him last May 7 while walking along Dona Vicenta Subdivision, Barangay Bajada, Davao City towards San Pedro Doctor's Hospital a little past 11:00 a.m. Yet he was denied even of these simple records and appropriate medication days after his arrest.

More condemnable was his mandhandling, denial of family visit, and denial of counsel in the first few days of his detention. During his arrest, he was presented with dubious old photocopies of four warrants of arrest that were very blurred and footer-captioned to clarify the dates and issuing judges of the warrants. In contrast to the inappropriate documents used by his captors, Roy Erecre had properly presented the original copy of his JASIG D.I.

He is entitled to safety and immunity guarantees for the duration of the peace negotiations. We restate concurrence to NDFP Negotiating Panel's assertions that all agreements between the GPH and the NDFP are of the nature of international treaties, to which national laws are subsumed.

The trumped-up charges against Comrade Erecre betray the continuing practice of the Aquino regime to convert the list of JASIG D.I. holders into an arrest list. The NDFP Negotiating Panel has time and again signified willingness to resume talks towards a just political settlement of the roots of armed conflict in the Philippines.

The Aquino regime is anti-peace negotiations. It delights on its habitual lies of caricaturing tested revolutionaries as lavish travelers and opportunist spenders. Roy Erecre had to travel all the way to his Mindanao hometown to seek a relatively secure check-up. Revolutionaries are definitely oceans apart from the lifestyles and practices of big-time pork barrel scammers in the Philippine legislature which remain scot-free from prison. Roy Erecre, like all other hard-working

Revolutionaries, is in fact an astute example of simple living in a protracted war.

The only thing we thank his captors for is returning the P352,000 in his possession which is largely medical pledges from Mindanao-based supporters for the continuing relief and rehabilitation work of Yolanda and earthquake victims in north Cebu and Bohol.

We call on the GRP to immediately free Comrade Roy Erecre. True, imprisoned revolutionaries never imprisoned revolutions. But the GRP also has a choice of honoring agreements instead of repeatedly committing self-defeating acts.

Authenticated by

HOPE BONDOC

Representative, NDF-Central Visayas