PRESS STATEMENTS & INTERVIEWS, 2001 - Present

Press Statement

On The Golez and Ricciardone Statements at the FOCAP Press Forum in Manila

14 January 2003

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines NDFP), including the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA), is interested in peace negotiations in order to broadcast its program of fighting for national liberation and democracy and find out whether it can arrive at agreements with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) on economic, social political and constitutional reforms for the benefit of the people and towards a just and lasting peace.

National security adviser Roilo Golez is telling a lie when he claims that the revolutionary forces of the NDFP want to have peace negotiations because of "heavy political and military setbacks suffered by the NPA". In fact, the CPP has recently announced to the public the cumulative and current victories of the NPA in revolutionary armed struggle, land reform and the building of mass organizations and organs of political power in 128 guerrilla fronts, covering significant portions of the population and territory of 70 provinces and 800 municipalities and provincial cities.

The CPP, NPA and the NDFP are growing revolutionary forces that enjoy the active support of the broad masses of the people. Their high revolutionary consciousness and rising strength are in sharp contrast to the isolated and rotting condition of the current regime. Mrs. Macapagal-Arroyo has recently announced her withdrawal from the 2004 presidential race, because the broad united front has succeeded in arousing the people against the puppetry, corruption, incompetence and brutality of her regime.

The mendacious statement of Golez seeks to scoff at the NPA and the entire revolutionary movement. But it can only incite the people and the NPA to intensify the armed revolution. At this time, when the crisis of the domestic ruling system and the world capitalist system is daily worsening, officials of the Macapagal-Arroyo regime should refrain from opposing and scorning the good intent of the NDFP in wishing the resumption of the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations.

US ambassador Francis Ricciardone seeks to flatter the Macapagal-Arroyo regime as having ‘won a major diplomatic campaign" by obtaining from the US, European and other governments the listing of the CPP, NPA and NDFP chief political consultant as "terrorists" and the related punitive measures. Because CPP and NPA bank accounts do not exist, the European authorities have absurdly frozen my small bank account, social welfare payments and insurance reimbursements.

The puppeteer is telling a lie in attributing a diplomatic victory to the puppet regime. The truth is that this regime has shamelessly surrendered to the US and other foreign governments what the GRP presumes as its jurisdiction over litigious actions of the NPA in the Philippines. It has also allowed the US to misrepresent as "terrorism" what the GRP deems as "rebellion" under its own penal code.

Under the Macapagal-Arroyo regime, the GRP has violated the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees by actively seeking to criminalize as a "terrorist" the NDFP chief political consultant and to place the NDFP negotiators, consultants, staffers and supporters under the threat of being likewise arbitrarily criminalized. The NDFP chief political consultant is demonised and criminalized as a "terrorist" despite the absence of any formal criminal charge against him anywhere in the world.

The GRP has also violated the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. This agreement clearly places the armed conflict between the armed forces of the GRP and NDFP within the bounds of international humanitarian law. It is utterly malicious for the US and GRP to connive in misrepresenting as "terrorist" the CPP, NPA and the NDFP chief political consultant.

The GRP-NDFP peace negotiations cannot be resumed unless the GRP joins the NDFP in reaffirming The Hague Joint Declaration, JASIG and CARHRIHL and in repudiatingague Joint Declaratio and HagueHag the obstructive interference of the US and other foreign governments in the peace negotiations. The GRP should cease to connive with the US in using the "terrorist" listing to pressure the NDFP in the peace negotiations. The GRP must wake up to the fact that the US is interested in scuttling these negotiations because it wants to fan the flames of war and escalate US military intervention in the Philippines

The support of the European Parliament and other pillars of the European Union for the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and the facilitation of these negotiations by European governments are always welcome but certainly not the "terrorist" witch-hunting which places the NDFP under duress and runs counter to the building of goodwill and confidence in the peace negotiations.

True to its character as the No. 1 terrorist power in the whole history and current circumstances of mankind, the US is on a rampage of misrepresenting national liberation movements and countries assertive of their national independence as terrorist, threatening entire peoples with the first use and preemptive use of weapons of mass destruction, waging wars of aggression and whipping up regimes of repression. In the face of the barbarism of the US., the peoples of the world are driven to intensify and carry forward their revolutionary struggles.#