Press Statement

3 July 2007

NDFP POSITION ON CEASEFIRE AND PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

By Prof. Jose Maria Sison

Chief Political Consultant

National Democratic Front of the Philippines



Manila-- The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) maintains the position that the peace negotiations between itself and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) are ongoing because no side has declared the termination of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).

But my prognosis is that the GRP will cause the permanent termination of said peace negotiations by proscribing the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA) and the NDFP chief political consultant as “terrorists” and taking actions against them in violation of The Hague Joint Declaration, JASIG and other mutual agreements, especially the Oslo Joint Statements I and II, which are anathema to the “terrorist” blacklist.

The GRP, particularly the Arroyo regime, cannot pressure and force the NDFP to capitulate under the guise of an unwarranted ceasefire by using as leverage the gross and systematic human rights violations that it has already committed against NDFP personnel, consultants and other people and by threatening to use the Human Security Act (Anti-Terror Law) as a license for escalating human rights violations.

The NDFP is well aware that the Malacanang-directed butchers in the GRP military and police forces are aiming to commit more atrocities against the revolutionary forces and people with far more impunity as soon as there is a ceasefire that amounts to a capitulation and pacification of the revolutionary forces.

The NDFP has made clear its just and reasonable position: it is willing to resume the formal talks of the peace negotiations on the remaining issues in the substantive agenda (socio-economic and political reforms) if exploratory talks can bring about a formal written agreement on certain prejudicial questions, such as the ongoing human rights violations by the regime, the murder and kidnapping of NDFP personnel and consultants, the “terrorist” listing of the CPP, NPA and NDFP by foreign governments and the indemnification of the victims of human rights violations under the Marcos regime.

The NDFP is also willing to enter into a ceasefire agreement under its proposed 10-point Concise Agreement for an Immediate Just Peace. But it is certainly unwilling to accept any kind of ceasefire which blatantly violates or runs counter to the existing agreements between the GRP and NDFP, the national and democratic principles of the NDFP and the people’s demand for the adoption of basic socio-economic and political reforms to address the roots of the armed conflict.

The NDFP represents revolutionary people and forces that are battle-tested under the circumstances of the Anti-Subversion Law, the Marcos fascist dictatorship and subsequent regimes. It is not at all frightened by the oppressiveness and brutality of state terrorism unleashed by the extremely corrupt and bankrupt Arroyo regime in subservience to imperialist interests. On the other hand the horrible crimes of the regime impel the revolutionary forces and the people to fight more resolutely and vigorously for their national and democratic rights.

The Filipino people and revolutionary forces know how the false illusion of economic growth is conjured by a mounting foreign and local debt for the purpose of upper class-consumption rather than real development through national industrialization and land reform. They are determined to take concrete actions against the imperialist and big comprador-landlord interests that wish to further grab the land, mineral resources, state assets and other wealth of the country.

The Arroyo regime is hell-bent on suppressing the Filipino people and revolutionary people by murdering, kidnapping, torturing and driving them away from their homes and land. But the Filipino people and revolutionary forces have always strongly manifested their determination to defend themselves and wage resistance, punish the worst of human rights violators and plunderers and build the new organs of democratic power to replace the ruling system of greed and terror. ###