Philippines - Aquino regime is responsible for scuttling peace negotiations

PRESS STATEMENT

By FIDEL V. AGCAOILI, Spokesperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel

**Aquino regime Is responsible for scuttling peace negotiations**

The regime of Benigno Aquino III is not interested in reaching agreements with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
(NDFP) that would address the roots of the armed conflict and pave the way for a just and lasting peace in the country.

The NDFP, through negotiating panel Chairperson Luis Jalandoni, has already expressed its desire to hold another round of formal talks of the negotiating panels, the Reciprocal Working Committees on Social and Economic Reforms (RWCs SER), the Working Groups on Political and Constitutional Reforms (WGs PCR) and the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC), in Oslo, Norway, from 12 to 24 September 2011.
However, the Aquino regime keeps on blocking the holding of formal talks by maliciously refusing to comply with signed agreements in the Oslo Joint Statements of January and February 2011 to release all or most of the 17 individuals protected under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).
Through its Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), its Negotiating Panel and its Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Aquino regime has issued a series of press statements denying its obligation to comply with signed agreements and arrogantly boasting that agreements in the peace negotiations between the NDFP and the Government of the Philippines (GPH) amount to nothing.
The Aquino regime has practically terminated the JASIG by declaring it “inoperative”, thereby putting at risk the lives of all those
protected by the JASIG, including those from both sides who are publicly known to be involved in the peace negotiations, from the armed agents and/or unscrupulous elements in the GPH. One spokesperson of the AFP has gone so far as to say that Oplan ayanihan must be pursued single-mindedly and that there is no need for peace negotiations.
It is becoming clear that the Aquino regime lacks the political will to continue with the peace negotiations. The regime does not have the integrity and word of honor to comply with signed agreements. It is hopelessly servile to US dictates, so manifest in its pursuit of the US-designed Oplan Bayanihan. The Aquino regime has no use for the peace negotiations except for psywar for a while but to scuttle these ultimately in order to further escalate military campaigns of suppression and the most brazen human rights violations against the people.

2 September 2011