AJLPP Update 082801

August 29, 2007



More wars for Gloria to fight

EDITORIAL

08/30/2007

The Daily Tribune

Manila---Communist leader Jose Maria Sison’s arrest by the Dutch police for two murders committed in the Philippines is yet one more example of the Philippines, a sovereign country, giving up its sovereignty to a foreign power by acknowledging The Netherlands’ jurisdiction over a case, or cases committed on Philippine soil.

It would have been understandable, and even correct, for the Dutch authorities to order the arrest of Sison and whoever else among the self-exiles in the communist movement, if he and anyone of them broke Dutch law for a crime committed in Dutch territory. But to arrest Sison on charges of two murders committed in the Philippines years ago?

Why not then? Why only now, when even the Philippine government could not even find the communist hitmen who did in two of Sison’s former political allies?

In defense of its actions, the Dutch government claimed that under Dutch law, Sison can be arrested and be made to face charges of having ordered the murders from The Netherlands, of two of his political associates in Manila, Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara.

This is not to say Sison could not have done it from The Netherlands. It is also not to say Sison did it. The point is that the crimes were committed in the Philippines and the case’s jurisdiction should be the Philippines, not the Dutch courts, even if such a Dutch law exists.

Proving such charges of Sison having directly ordered the communist New People’s Army (NPA) to assassinate the two former communist leaders while Sison was in exile, would be a most difficult thing to do, especially under an independent court — unless, of course, there is concrete evidence of such a kill order from Sison, whether this evidence comes from the Philippine government, or from the Dutch government.

If the Dutch government is banking on affidavits from alleged communist hitmen in the Philippines as its evidence against Sison, the Dutch prosecutors may yet have an egg land on their faces, given the history of the Arroyo government’s practice of manufacturing evidence against its political foes.

Already, the Philippine National Police’s Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG), a discredited group, has suddenly surfaced three alleged communist-witnesses who claimed it was the NPA that abducted missing activist Jonas Burgos, even when all signs point to the military as the abductors.

Vehicles with their license plates were traced to the military, with even the Army chief’s vehicle having been seen during the abduction. How then could the NPA have had free use of these vehicles in the abduction of Burgos?

The military is lying, and now it even gets the police to lie, to save the hide of the criminals in the military.

Still, one can’t discount the possibility of the Dutch police having “hard” evidence with which to charge Sison in court.

But if the Dutch police had such evidence in their possession, why was there a need to ransack the apartments of the National Democratic Front and the need of a ruse to arrest Sison?

What is evident, however, is that the Arroyo government, no doubt through Red-baiter National Security Adviser (NSA) Norberto Gonzales, moved to get the Dutch government to effect the arrest of Sison on murder charges committed in the Philippines. It has alerady been reported that Gloria, hearing the news, congratulated her NSA for the arrest of Sison. She even claimed that with the arrest of Sison, peace with the communists will now be easier to forge.

This is, in all probability, the line she fed the Dutch government, which in turn, tried to find a loophole in its laws to arrest Sison. What is not being realized is that peace won’t be forthcoming from the local communists and their armed force, much less their Sparrow units or some such assassination units. Gloria and her NSA have, in truth, created more problems for themselves — in the path to peace.

Gloria and her war freaks in the Cabinet and in the military-police force are at the moment, fighting a war in at least three major fronts: the claimed Abu Sayyaf fighters, the Moro National Liberation Front and the Jemaah Islamiyah, along with some Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels who merely change rebel tags when caught. This Muslim insurgency is not going to go away, even with the so-called peace talks and the ceasefire. Neither will there be peace talks with the communists, with the arrest of Sison. Stepped-up guerrilla wars staged by the Reds will be the norm, and more soldiers will be found in the graveyard.

Then, there is the political war that Gloria can’t seem to win, as she continues to face the specter of political unrest which stems from three converging events, among which is the expected conviction of detained President Joseph Estrada.

It will be more war, not peace, for Gloria and her government.

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