PRESS STATEMENTS & INTERVIEWS, 2001 - Present

Press Statement

Politically Motivated Fabrication of Murder Charge Amounts to Nothing in the Philippines and the Netherlands

March 5, 2003

I am happy and grateful to be informed by the Public Interest Law Center that a team of brilliant young women lawyers has been formed to monitor and defend me from the false charges of common crimes that the Arroyo regime is fabricating against me.

The team includes Marie F. Yuvienco, Marichu Lambino, Rachel Pastores and Camille Sevilla. The fifth woman lawyer will join the team before the March 12 hearing of the complaint of the Philippine National Police (PNP) against me regarding the killing of Col. Rodolfo Aquinaldo.

Let me now state my position. The PNP allegation that I "masterminded" the killing of the notorious human rights violator, Col. Rodolfo Aguinaldo, is a complete lie. To reiterate my previous declaration: I have nothing to do with the killing. It is my observation that so many of his victims wished that revolutionary justice would overtake him, especially because he acted as an armed combatant and continued to violate human rights with impunity in an unjust system that kept on rewarding him with positions of power.

The department of justice of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) wastes the time of its personnel and public funds by entertaining a patently groundless complaint. This is based on the manifestly false testimonies of well-known military assets and perjurers of long standing. The aforesaid department should not engage in a sham preliminary investigation that can serve no other purpose than to make pure propaganda under the orders of the US-directed Arroyo ruling clique.

The politically motivated fabrication of murder charge against me amounts to nothing in the Philippines as well as in The Netherlands. In view of the fact that I have been away from the Philippines since 1986, nearly seventeen years ago, there is no way that the GRP can validly serve me with a subpoena.

I cannot be served with a subpoena through any entity in the Philippines. Any attempt in this regard would be irregular and would not pass the test of due process even by Philippine legal standards. Neither can the GRP serve on me a subpoena abroad because legal processes cannot be extended beyond the Philippines.

No extradition treaty exists between the Philippines and The Netherlands, where I reside. Most importantly, as a recognized political refugee, I am protected by the Refugee Convention and by Article 3 of the European Convention. I can debunk in court any politically motivated and fabricated charge of common crime, especially in a court of law beyond the control of the US and GRP.

It is utterly stupid for the GRP to file a murder charge against me or anyone else for the killing of Colonel Aguinaldo and his bodyguard. Since June 2001, the New People's Army (NPA) has publicly admitted responsibility for the killing of the two. Under the Hernandez doctrine of political offense in Philippine jurisprudence, the GRP cannot construe the NPA's acts of rebellion (political offense) as common crimes, like murder and terrorism (which does not even exist yet in the penal code of the GRP).

For a long time, the NPA openly considered Aguinaldo and his armed bodyguards as armed combatants, active in military operations against the NPA and in human rights violations against the people, even after he became governor and then congressman of Cagayan, Aguinaldo had been one of the most notorious human rights violators under the Marcos fascist regime and continued to be so even after the fall of Marcos.

The GRP violates the provisions of national sovereignty and non-capitulation in The Hague Joint Declaration by trumping up charges of common crimes like terrorism and now murder against me and yielding jurisdiction to foreign governments in order to intimidate and pressure the negotiators and consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) to capitulate.

The GRP violates the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) by the very act of requesting foreign governments to tag the Communist Party of the Philippines, New People's Army and the NDFP chief political consultant as "terrorists" and allowing them to arrogate and usurp criminal jurisdiction over an armed conflict governed by international humanitarian law.

The Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) obliges the GRP to follow the principles and standards of the international law on human rights and humanitarian conduct in war. It carries many provisions that allow the GRP and NDFP jointly and separately to carry them out. It also requires the GRP to respect the Hernandez doctrine in its own jurisprudence.

The US-controlled puppet regime of the Arroyo ruling clique is in a frenzy to fabricate murder charges against me. It tries belatedly to create the false impression that there is evidence for the earlier charge of terrorism that it has requested the US government to initiate against me.

It appears that when the GRP requested the US and other foreign governments to demonize, criminalize and penalize me as a "terrorist" it ignored or overlooked the fact that there was the GRP declaration in 1998 that there was no pending criminal charge against me. Until now, there is no charge of common crime against me before any court in the Philippines, The Netherlands or anywhere else in the world.

The false criminal charges being hurled against me by the GRP, US and other foreign government are directly connected with the unjust demand of the GRP that the NDFP accept the instrument of capitulation, the so-called final peace agreement, unilaterally drafted by the GRP.

By making the false charges and by giving a six-month ultimatum, the GRP has already killed the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. The NDFP negotiating panel is now simply waiting for the lapse of the ultimatum, the termination of the peace negotiations by the GRP or the replacement of the Arroyo regime by a regime willing to negotiate with the NDFP.

In the meantime, Ms Macapagal Arroyo and her defense secretary have already put the revolutionary forces and people on the alert by announcing that the GRP and its armed forces are escalating military campaigns in collaboration with US combat forces. The people of the world are now witnessing the battles in Mindanao and are expecting significant fighting to burst out soon on a nationwide scale in the Philippines. #