Formal talks between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) are in danger of being stalled again as old issues that kept both parties from agreeing in the past seemed the same that neither party would approve.
Government peace negotiators last week met with NDF leaders in Oslo, Norway for two-day informal peace talk seen by the government as meaningful, but still yielded no indication of putting an end to conflict and hostilities between the government and the communist rebel groups under the NDF.
The Oslo talks were the first since the government and NDF panels packed up amid a stalemate over demands and conditions that neither party seemed willing to give. Among the prevailing demands seen to prevent the formal talks is the NDF’s call for the release of 14 persons it claims as its consultants.
According to the NDF, the persons they wanted the government to free were actually protected by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig).
The Jasig is an agreement signed by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines or the GRP and the NDFP in February 1995. It provides protection and immunity to all participants in the peace talks. Jasig-protected persons are consultants and personnel of both parties supposedly immune from arrest and any other form of harassment.
But the Philippine government stressed these individuals must remain in jail after being arrested for various crimes, including murder.
The NDF, in a statement, however, said both sides “have agreed to continue meaningful discussions... to pave the way for resumption of the formal talks in the peace negotiations in order to resolve the armed conflict.”
It added discussions last week focused on the rebels’ demands for the government to release dozens of comrades it said were advisers to the talks and should be covered by immunity from arrest.
The communist group said it was also prepared to implement a joint ceasefire offered by the government, but gave no dates of when such a plan would take place.
The government’s chief negotiator for the rebels, Alexander Padilla, was not immediately available for comment.
Padilla earlier called the demand for their release “a precondition” to the resumption of peace talks.
NDF chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni, in his letter to Padilla, reiterated their demand for the immediate release of 14 persons it claimed as its consultants and are protected by the Jasig.
The NDF demand seemed reflective of the peace talks in the past when the same call compelled both parties to abandon the negotiating table.
It was during the previous peace talks that the government required proof that the persons the NDF wanted freed were really on the Jasig list.
The NDF cited one diskette where the data required by the government is contained. But the diskette turned out to be corrupted, thus making it impossible for the communist group to come up with the “proof.”
The government then rejected the NDF’s offer to reconstruct the list of Jasig-protected persons, even as the government expressed doubt concerning the veracity of the names that the NDF may include in the list.
Jalandoni for his part insisted on reconstructing the Document of Identification list, even as he urged the government to consider encrypted photos in lieu of the hard copies.  He also asked for a reinvestigation of the alleged extrajudicial killing of NDF Political Consultant Sotero Llamas and the enforced disappearances of Leo Velasco, Prudencio Calubid, Rogelio Calubad and other consultants.
Jalandoni said Padilla brought up a proposal for a ceasefire between the government and the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the CPP-NDF.
But Jalandoni said the two panels could discuss this at a later time in connection with the NDF proposal for a truce and alliance as a “special track” in the peace talks.
President Aquino reopened peace talks with the communists in February last year, with both sides agreeing to meet a June 2012 deadline for signing a peace deal.
But the talks were bogged down by the communists’ demand to release detained comrades and a string of deadly rebel attacks.
In April, the guerrillas launched their most audacious strike in recent years, killing 11 soldiers and a civilian in an ambush on three army convoys led by a senior military official in Luzon island.
Fernan J. Angeles and AFP