Statement of the 7th Ecumenical Church Leaders’ Summit on Peace

November 7-9, 2018, Cebu City

We, church leaders from various denominations and diverse Christian traditions from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao, gathered to reflect and discern our ways forward to attain peace based on justice in our country. We gathered driven by our faith in God and in our belief that peace is possible. Our coming together is deliberate because of the status of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. President Duterte cancelled the fifth round of formal talks last June 2018, formally terminated the peace talks and subsequently declared the Communist Party of the Philippines – New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) as a “terror organization”.

The situation has turned for the worse. Several peace consultants of the NDFP were arrested, and just yesterday, Mr. Vicente Ladlad was also arrested. There were also significant increases in armed encounters between the Philippine military and the New People’s Army (NPA) and alarming reports of an increase in violations of human rights and international humanitarian law that have mostly affected civilians. During our Summit, we learned of the killing of Atty. Ben Ramos, a well-known human rights lawyer in Negros Occidental and just two weeks after the killing of the Sagay 9. We are very much concerned and alarmed by these reports because of our conviction that respect for human rights and human dignity is a basic condition of peace.

There was a bright prospect when the formal peace talks resumed in earnest in 2016 after four years of impasse. Through the third party facilitation of the Royal Norwegian Government, four successful rounds of formal talks were held in 2016 and 2017.

We are thus saddened that the cancellation of the formal peace talks has aborted the signing of an interim peace agreement consisting of a general amnesty for NDFP-listed political prisoners, agrarian reform and rural development as well as national industrialization and economic development agreements and a coordinated unilateral ceasefire. These would have addressed the root causes of the armed conflict – the long-standing issues of poverty, landlessness and inequality in the country.

We affirm our belief that peace is possible through principled dialogue. The talks are still the most viable option to attain a just and enduring peace in the country. A survey by Pulse Asia this year found 74% of Filipinos are aware of the GRP-NDFP peace talks. Of those who are aware, nearly 80% believe that peace talks can end the hostilities between the warring forces.

On this 7thEcumenical Church Leaders’ Summit on Peace, we continue to call on the GRP and the NDFP to:

– RESUME THE FORMAL PEACE TALKS.

– Honor and implement all signed agreements especially the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).

We make this call guided by the Scriptures:

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, without uncertainty or insincerity. And the harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace”(James 3:17-18).

Issued and Signed on this day 9thNovember, 2018

(Sgd.)
ARCHBISHOP ANTONIO J. LEDESMA, S.J., DD
Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro
Co-chairperson, PEPP

(Sgd.)
THE RIGHT REVD. REX RB REYES, JR.
Espisopal Diocese of Central Philippines
Co-chairperson, PEPP

(Sgd.)
BISHOP NOEL A. PANTOJA
National Director
Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches

(Sgd.)
MOST REV. BISHOP EMERITUS DEOGRACIAS S. INIGUEZ, JR.
Co-chairperson
Ecumenical Bishops Forum

(Sgd.)
SR. MARY JOHN D. MANANZAN, OSB
Office of the Women and Gender Commission
Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines – Women

*The PEPP is a platform for 5 church institutions/groups, namely, the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) with organizations of Religious, Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC) and the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF), in working for a just and enduring peace by supporting the peace process between the GRP-NDFP.

Kodao Productions
November 9, 2018

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) condemned the arrest of its peace consultant Vicente Ladlad along with couple Alberto and Virginia Villamor midnight of November 8 in Barangay San Bartolome, Novaliches, Quezon City.

The NDFP said Ladlad’s arrest is a flagrant violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) it signed with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).

The group also accused arresting officers of “planting” explosives on Ladlad to justify his prolonged detention on non-bailable offenses.

The Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police (PNP) said Ladlad was in possession of two assault rifles, two handguns, four grenades and assorted ammunition at the time of his arrest.

Ladlad is the third NDFP consultant actively participating in the peace talks to be arrested by the Duterte regime.

“Less than a month ago, Adelberto Silva, a member of the NDFP Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms was arrested with five others in Sta. Cruz, Laguna on October 15 while conducting sectoral consultations,” the NDFP said.

A third consultant, Rafael Baylosis, was arrested along Katipunan Ave. in Quezon City on January 31.

Silva and Baylosis were also accused of possessing guns and explosives when arrested.

“Under the JASIG, Ladlad, Silva and Baylosis as duly accredited NDFP consultants publicly known to be involved in the peace negotiations should have been free from surveillance, harassment, search, arrest, detention, prosecution and interrogation or any other similar punitive actions,” the NDFP said.

Just two weeks ago, Ladlad’s wife Fides Lim reported being tailed by suspected state agents riding a silver Innova van with plate number TY 4585 as she left her house.

A check with the Land Transportation Office revealed that the number is registered to a red Honda TMX motorcycle. In a separate statement Thursday, Lim challenged the PNP to conduct a fingerprint test of all the guns the arresting officers said they found in the house where Ladlad was staying.

“They will not find a single speck of his fingerprint in any of that trove because they were all planted to keep him locked up on non-bailable charges. They faked their evidence because they have no case against him,” Lim said.

Lim said the PNP failed to present Ladlad in a press conference in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig Thursday in time for Director General Oscar Albayalde’s birthday when their stunt “flopped”.

“[T]he PNP failed to present Vic because their publicity stunt flopped when the media began interviewing me right inside that room and I said that all those guns the PNP says they captured from him were all planted,” Lim said.

“I kept on insisting that all I want is to see my husband, to verify with my own eyes that they have not harmed him in any way. But the PNP maneuvered at least three times to get me and the media out of that room,” she added.

Lim said she told the media that the PNP is doing this because it wanted to display the “planted guns” on the tables inside the room and it did not want the feisty woman around.

“What is PNP Chief Albayalde so afraid of? The truth. Because he is a liar who manufactures evidence to justify their cases that are built on pure lies,” Lim fumed.

She added it was only after nearly nine hours that she was able to see her husband when they sped after the PNP convoy that brought him back to Camp Karingal to imprison him.

“Happy birthday, Gen. Albayalde, I’m glad I rained on your parade,” Lim taunted. The NDFP said it demands its consultants’ immediate release and the dropping of “trumped-up criminal charges” against them to end their unjust detention.

The NDFP likewise demanded the release of four other “unjusty imprisoned” NDFP consultants Rommel Salinas and Ferdinand Castillo who are being held in BJMP facilities and Eduardo Sarmiento and Leopoldo Caloza who are incarcerated at the national penitentiary. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Philippine Peace Center
Press Statement
26 September 2018

“Red October”– the supposed plot exposed by Malacanang and the AFP top brass wherein the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the Liberal Party (LP), Tindig Pilipinas (TP) and the Movement Against Tyranny (MAT) have allegedly banded together in a conspiracy to oust President Duterte is nothing but a big fat lie. It is a Red-scare fabrication aimed at splitting the opposition, preventing the various legal groups from closing ranks and undertaking bigger joint protest actions. It is part of the scheme to Red-tag, demonize and stigmatize the more militant and progressive groups as “terrorists” and “communists” as a prelude to and pretext for “neutralizing” them with more repressive measures.

Malacanang and the AFP have nothing but tall tales and conflicting statements to back up their story. President Duterte says the information was provided by a foreign power, but could not reveal which one. The AFP generals say they retrieved the information from seized laptops, but could not show a single page of documentary proof. (But of course, “producing” and displaying such documents would not prove anything, since any grade schooler can produce any kind of “document” from a computer!) If there are really such documents, Secretary of Defense Lorenzana, the Commander-in-Chief’s alter-ego to whom the AFP should report directly, has no knowledge of them, thus declaring, “We have no proof of such conspiracy.” To date, PNP top brass cautiously qualify “Red October” as an allegation– all they have is raw information that they still need to validate.

And yet the AFP generals have gone on a red-tagging spree, branding workers’ strikes dubbed “Aklasan”, and student protests as major parts of the conspiracy, both allegedly serving as recruiting ground for the New People’s Army (NPA). The communists are behind all the protest movements! Ergo, the armed NPA cannot be eradicated unless their legal political infrastructure is neutralized and dismantled, and the protests are suppressed. All government agencies, institutions, LGUs must be geared at crushing both the armed and unarmed components of the communist insurgency ; the military cannot do it alone. This is the “whole-of-nation” approach.
What does all this have to do with the peace process? Why has the AFP singled out two of the better known peace advocates—former Rep. Satur Ocampo and Philippine Peace Center Executive Director Rey Casambre, as orchestrating the “Red October” ouster plot in behalf of the CPP? Surely the AFP and PNP know this could not be true. They know there is no “Red October” plot. Besides, no matter how challenged military intelligence is, it is easy to determine that neither of them is in the “secretariat” or is not even an organizer of MAT or any of the groups in the imaginary conspiracy.

An underlying argument in the militarists’ approach to the peace process is that the armed conflict causes underdevelopment and poverty, not the other way around. Thus, development can only be pursued and poverty eradicated once the insurgency is defeated, mainly through military means. This approach is contrary to the view, adopted by the GRP & NDFP Negotiating Panels and by peace advocates here and abroad, that genuine peace can only be achieved by instituting basic social, economic and political reforms that address and eradicate the roots of the armed conflict.

Over the years, the GRP has balked at negotiating basic or fundamental social and economic reforms, such as land reform and national industrialization. While it appeared, in the first year of the Duterte regime, that some major headway was achievable in discussing these reforms, the talks deteriorated drastically after martial law was declared in Mindanao, and virtually collapsed last June when the GRP unilaterally cancelled the resumption of the formal talks, declared the termination of the negotiations, declared the CPP and NPA as terrorist organizations and announced a shift to local peace talks in violation of prior bilateral agreements.
Former Rep. Ocampo and Mr. Casambre were the most vocal and visible peace advocates criticizing the imminent “paradigm shift” as a virtual abandonment of the path to genuine peace and warning against the rise and dominance of the militarist and even fascist approach to “ending the insurgency”. The calls to resume formal peace talks, honor all bilateral agreements and address the roots of the armed conflict resonated not only among peace advocates but with various sectors – peasants demanding land reform, workers demanding an end to contractualization, ordinary people protesting spiking prices and rampant human rights violations such as the drug killings.

It would seem that the outlandish accusations against Rep. Ocampo and Mr. Casambre are a product of “failure of intelligence” if not a dearth of it. But no, it does not take much intelligence to determine that Rep. Ocampo and Mr. Casambre could not have orchestrated “Red October”, even assuming without granting that there is one. Perhaps by branding the two as “communists” and “terrorists” the AFP hopes to discourage, if not scare, other peace advocates from being vocally critical of the GRP’s new “paradigm shift”. Or in a broader context, to discourage and pre-empt protest actions against the government.

If this is so, then Malacanang and its minions have not learned their lesson in history: Repression only breeds further resistance. ###
___________________________________________________
Reference: Rey Claro Casambre, Executive Director; rey.casambre@gmail.com; Tel: 0943686195

Ecumenical Voice for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (EcuVoice)

Press Statement
September 25, 2018

A recent interview of AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Carlito Galves and Brig. Gen. Antonio Parlade, Jr. revealed the sad truth that the Armed Forces of the Philippines remains in a quagmire of anti-democratic war-mongering, stale conspiracy peddling, and vicious red-tagging of known peace advocates in the GRP-NDFP peace process.

In dropping the names of Rey Casambre and former congressman Satur Ocampo as being in the center of an imagined, nay, invented conspiracy plot, the AFP has provided concrete evidence that they are indeed war-mongering peace-spoilers. Rey Casambre of the Philippine Peace Center and Satur Ocampo of Pilgrims for Peace are publicly known peace advocates. Their efforts in seeking to move the peace talks forward in addressing the roots of the armed conflict towards the aspiration of a just and enduring peace in the Philippines are well known to peace advocates throughout the country and internationally.

Naming Casambre and Ocampo as central figures in the AFP’s poorly concocted conspiracy theory makes abundantly clear that Duterte’s state forces are prone to fascist machinations and red-tagging which undermine democracy and impinge upon democratic freedoms.

Many peace advocates—both in the Philippines and around the world—will insist that part of peace building is allowing and even encouraging the participation of dissenting and marginalized voices in government and society. In contrast, the blatantly oppressive character of the military was revealed as they repeatedly warned of infiltration by communists in government. Peace advocates applaud the participation of progressive, pro-poor leaders in government, especially as they have been seen to deliver reforms and services that benefit the poor and toiling majority.

The AFP made evident that they wish to blame a faltering economy on the opposition. They even went as far as to accuse the opposition of manipulating the price of rice. This is ridiculous. Meanwhile, they also exposed the lie of their so-called “Whole of Nation” approach where the military seeks to control and manipulate access to basic and social services for their anti-insurgency campaign, while feigning that they are apolitical.

We want peace for the Philippines. The way to move in this direction is to resume GRP-NDFP peace talks intended to address the roots of the armed conflict. The negotiating parties had hammered out meaningful agreements, ready for signature, on much needed Socio-Economic Reforms. These very peace spoilers in the AFP and the security cluster are the ones standing in the way of democracy and peace building.

The public would be wise not to give an iota of credence to the AFP’s conspiracy tales. An open opposition exists. It would be much worse for democracy in the Philippines if it didn’t. And as Duterte’s military henchmen grasp at straws to attempt to tie together these perceived strands of opposition and falsely render them into a tidy conspiracy, they only lay bare their penchant for military rule.

On some level, President Duterte appears to have coalesced with their thinking. We must urge him that it is not too late to recalibrate toward peace talks and addressing historic injustices and root causes of armed conflict in our beloved homeland. People like Rey Casambre of the Philippine Peace Center and Satur Ocampo of Pilgrims for Peace would welcome such developments.

As President Duterte continues to follow the AFP’s war-mongering and martial law, opposition will continue to grow in response to increased oppression and militarization. Not only should we not believe this conspiracy they are peddling, we must encourage the Duterte administration that peace-building and resuming GRP-NDFP peace talks is the better option altogether. ###

Reference:
Bishop Rex RB Reyes, Jr., D.D.
Convenor, Ecumenical Voice for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (Ecuvoice)

Fidel V. Agcaoili
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
September 13, 2018

The Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) welcomes the passing of House Resolution 1803 by the House Special Committee on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity on September 12, 2018 that urged President Duterte to resume the peace talks.

The resolution is a positive move by the committee members and contributes to calls of various other sectors and groups to continue the peace negotiations. We hope this welcome move by the House Special Committee can encourage President Duterte to go back to the negotiating table and work towards a just and lasting peace.

When Duterte unilaterally terminated the peace talks in November 2017, there were already significant advancements in the negotiations in the form of tentative agreements on the sections of agrarian reform and rural development and national industrialization and economic development of the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER); coordinated unilateral ceasefire; and, amnesty of all political prisoners listed by the NDFP.

These agreements had been formulated and initialed by representatives of the GRP and NDFP during the monthly informal or back channel talks from March to June 2018 and were subject to finalization in the aborted fifth round of formal talks on June 28, 2018.

The NDFP is always open to resumption of peace negotiations in accordance with all signed agreements such as The Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantee (JASIG), and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), without preconditions. ####

Kodao Productions
28 June 2018

National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said they could no longer negotiate with a government headed by President Rodrigo Duterte.

In his strongest statement condemning Duterte’s repeated cancellation of formal talks yet, Sison said the Filipino people, especially the oppressed and exploited, cannot expect any benefit from negotiating with Duterte’s government, adding the president has broken so many promises related to the peace process.

“It is relatively easier and more productive for the NDFP to participate in the Oust-Duterte movement and to prepare for peace negotiations with the prospective administration that replaces the Duterte regime,” Sison said Thursday (June 28).

Sison said the Duterte regime is on record as having terminated the peace talks so many times that it is indubitably responsible for the termination of peace negotiations.

“It is therefore just for the revolutionary forces and the people to wage people´s war for national liberation and democracy,” Sison said.

Sison added that it would be well and good if Duterte withdraws finally from the peace negotiations with the NDFP.

But, in so doing, Duterte would deprive himself of the opportunity of creating false illusions that he is for peace, Sison said.

“He stands isolated and ripe for ouster by the broad united front of patriotic and democratic forces,” Sison said.

Duterte’s many lies

In a two part statement, Sison mentioned several promises broken by Duterte, including an unsolicited declaration on May 16, 2016 to amnesty and release all political prisoners.

Duterte only released 19 NDFP peace consultants in August 2016 to allow them to participate in the talks while about 520 NDFP-listed others remain in various detention facilities nationwide.

Duterte has also terminated the peace negotiations with the NDFP three times since May 2017, even fouling up every attempt to resume formal talks through back channel efforts, Sison said.

After terminating the peace negotiations for the third time in November and December 2017, Duterte issued Proclamation 360 to terminate the peace negotiations and Proclamation 374 to designate the CPP and NPA as terrorist organizations.

The Department of Justice subsequently filed a case before the Manila regional trial court (RTC) to seek the proscription of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA) and 600 individuals as terrorists.

“These are definitely obstacles to the resumption of peace negotiations with Duterte regime,” Sison said.

“Warm and cordial” start

NDFP’s negotiations with the Duterte government started well with the first two formal rounds of talks in Oslo, Norway described as “warm and cordial.”

Things turned sour, however, when a Philippine Army unit attacked an NPA camp in Arakan, North Cotabato in January 2017, killing an NPA fighter.

The attack came while the third round of formal talks just approved free land distribution as the centerpiece of a prospective agrarian reform and rural development agreement.

The five-month ceasefire in effect at the time, the longest between the NPA and the Armed Forces of the Philippines, was subsequently cancelled by both parties.

The fourth round of formal talks in Noordwijk, The Netherlands in April 2017 was very nearly cancelled due to the insistence of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) negotiating panel to negotiate a bilateral ceasefire agreement before further negotiations on social and economic reforms can proceed.

GRP negotiators explained that a bilateral ceasefire agreement are goodwill measures that would provide a conducive atmosphere for the continuation of formal talks.

No fifth round of formal talks has yet pushed through despite the arrival of GRP negotiators in Noordwijk in May and November 2017.

“The aforesaid actions of Duterte would have been enough bases for the NDFP to conclude that he is not at all interested in peace negotiations,” Sison said.

The CPP founder said the NDFP persevered and worked out a number of agreements with GRP representatives in back channel talks from March to June 2018, due in great part to the demands of peace advocates to remain on the negotiating table.

“The most important of these would have constituted the Interim Peace Agreement at the resumption of formal talks in Oslo from June 28 to 30,” Sison said.

The real reasons

Sison said the AFP and PNP’s wish to carry out to the end of 2018 their campaign plan to supposedly to finish off the NPA as well as to change the venue of peace talks to Manila are the real reasons why Duterte has canceled the resumption of peace talks in Oslo.

The change of venue is so that Duterte and the military can put the NDFP under their control, surveillance duress and manipulation, Sison said.

He said Ðuterte pretends to review in three months the entire process and all agreements in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations since 1992.

“By all indications, he will try to change the entire peace process and waste previous agreements. At any rate, he will try to impose on the NDFP changes that the NDFP will certainly reject,” he explained. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Philippine Peace Center
4/F Kaija Bldg. 7836 Makati Ave cor Valdez St.,Makati City, MM
Tel-(632) 8993439; Fax-(632) 8993416

Press Statement
5 July 2018

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque’s statement that the GRP is still open to the resumption of formal talks provided the NDFP complies with President Duterte’s preconditions shows utter ignorance, if not highhanded arrgance, in the conduct of peace negotiations.

Any serious and knowledgeable negotiator knows that imposing preconditions poisons the atmospheroe and is anathema to any serious, honest-to-goodness negotiation. It is in the nature of negotiations that two opposing Parties sit and find common ground in order to forge solemn agreements that are to their mutual, though not necessarily identical, interest.

In the case of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, the framework and foundation agreement—The Hague Joint Declaration of 1992 – explicitly states:
The holding of peace negotiations must be in accordance with mutually acceptable principles, including national sovereignty, democracy and social justice and no precondition shall be made to negate the inherent character and purpose of the peace negotiations. (emphasis ours)

Secretary Roque and Defense Secretary Lorenzana list the following as President Duterte’s preconditions for the resumption of the GRP-NDFP negotiations:

• Prof. Jose Ma. Sison must return to the Philippines and the peace talks must be held in the Philippines without a foreign third party facilitator
• no coalition government
• no arson, attacks, no revolutionary taxes
• NPA to stay in a safe areas (sic) under a ceasefire agreement
• no recruitment/mass mobilization

These preconditions are absurd because they ignore or deny the basic factual premise that a civil war has been raging for the past fifty years and that both sides have agreed to resolve the armed conflict through peaceful negotiations, with neither one imposing its will or its demands over the other across the negotiating table. To impose such preconditions on the NDFP is tantamount to demanding its capitulation or surrender, and therefore unacceptable.

The GRP’s own set of principles and guidelines governing its position and conduct in the peace negotiations (Ramos EO 125 and Arroyo EO 3) states:

“A comprehensive peace process seeks a principled and peaceful resolution to the internal armed conflicts, with neither blame nor surrender, but with dignity for all concerned.”

OPAPP Secretary Jesus Dureza and the entire GRP Negotiating Panel are well aware of this. Thus, Secretary Dureza, in his statement today, attempts to rectify, if not reverse, the boo-boo of Secretaries Roque and Lorenzana by describing these not as clear-cut preconditions but ambiguously as “the wishes of the President” to which the resumption of negotiations is “subject to”. The OPAPP and GRP Negotiating Panel, in the recent backchannel talks, had clearly treated these not as preconditions but as subject matters for negotiations.

The GRP would do well to get its act together. On matters of peace negotiations, the DND and Presidential Communications office should learn the basics as well as the nuances from the more knowledgeable and hands-on OPAPP and GRP Panel. Unfortunately, the latter’s credibility and negotiating power has been seriously eroded by the “postponement” of the formal talks and the DND-AFP’s rejection of the Stand Down of forces and prospective Coordinated Unilateral Ceasefire for fear that negotiations and ceasefires would only result in the further growth and strength of the NPA and entire revolutionary movement.

The result of all this ignorance and arrogance is that not only the GRP but the entire Filipino people are being deprived a useful venue for addressing and resolving the roots of the armed conflict. ###

______________________________________________________________________________
Reference: Rey Claro Casambre, Exec. Director; cp# 09436861956; philpeacecenter@gmail.com

THE SOURCE on CNN
July 4, 2018

NDFP Press Statement
Utrecht, The Netherlands
June 20, 2018

Representatives of the NDFP Negotiating Panel headed by Chairman Fidel V. Agcaoili and representatives of the GRP headed by GRP Negotiating Panel Member Hernani A. Braganza met in Utrecht, The Netherlands on June 18-20, 2018. The GRP representatives sought to explain to the NDFP the decision of the GRP to postpone the mutually approved schedule of the formal meetings in the peace negotiations to take place in Oslo, Norway on June 28-30, 2018.

Representatives of the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG), including Special Envoy Idun Tvedt, sat in the meetings in their role as Third Party Facilitator (TPF).

The meeting could not start on time on June 18 because the GRP team had to seek clarification from its Principal of the statement made by GRP Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque that the Third Party Facilitator had been dismissed. With the role of the TPF clarified, the meeting begun in the afternoon of the first day. The NDFP side assured the other side that the NDFP principal took note of the clarification. The role of the TPF is of key importance while there is need to hold formal peace negotiations in a foreign neutral venue in compliance with the pertinent provision in the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG).

The NDFP team listened to the explanation of the GRP team on the reasons for postponing the resumption of the formal talks and agreed that the peace negotiations continue despite the cancellation of the scheduled formal talks in Oslo on June 28 to 30. The agreements reached in the four rounds of informal talks in March, April, May and June 2018, remain valid and have the effect of continuing the peace negotiations under the direction of the principals and reaffirmation of previous agreements. In this regard, the two sides must comply with JASIG and its provision for a foreign neutral venue, consistent with the general practice of warring parties to negotiate peace outside of their country or their respective territories.

In the meantime, both sides expressed their intention to conduct separate unilateral consultations and in due course bilateral consultations according to their respective needs on the premise that the GRP and NDFP Negotiating Panels are mandated by their respective principals in accordance with existing agreements and that the GRP and NDFP are mutually determined to overcome obstacles and impediments to the peace negotiations.

The NDFP side will conduct consultations on the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) to review the remaining outstanding issues in the sections on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ARRD) and National Industrialization and Economic Development (NIED), as well as to polish its draft on Environmental Rehabilitation and Compensation and Upholding People’s Rights in order to prepare for the continuation of negotiations on CASER. It will also hold unilateral consultations with its working group on Political and Constitutional Reforms (PCR).

Finally, the two sides expressed their commitment to protect and preserve the gains that had been achieved in the four rounds of informal talks that produced documents containing important agreements to move the process forward.

The NDFP delegation expressed its gratitude to the Royal Norwegian Government for their invaluable and unwavering support to the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations in their role as Third Party Facilitator.#

Interviews posted on Jun 15, 2018

Interview with Rey Claro Casambre on CNN Philippines in News Night with Pia Hontiveros

Interview with Rey Claro Casambre on ABS-CBN News Channel with Christian V. Esguerra