The government has asked the regional trial courts to order back to jail National Democratic Front and Communist Party of the Philippines leaders who were earlier granted temporary liberty to participate in peace talks with the government.
The Justice department filed the motions for the cancellation of bail earlier granted to the NDF and CPP leaders after the Armed Forces linked communist groups to the so-called Red October plot to oust President Rodrigo Duterte.
The communists have denied the existence of any such plot.
“Our prosecutors have already filed motions in various courts for the cancellation of bail and issuance of warrants for their arrest,” Prosecutor General Richard Anthony Fadullon, head of the DOJ’s National Prosecution Service, said.
The DOJ had earlier moved for the provisional freedom of NDF consultants Benito Tiamzon, Adelberto Silva, Rafael Baylosis, Randall Echanis, Vicente Ladlad and Alan Jazmines for the peace talks scheduled recently.
The Manila RTC granted the motion and allowed Tiamzon, Silva, Baylosis, Echanis and Ladlad to post bail for their multiple murder cases so that they could travel to the Netherlands for the informal peace talks and to Norway for the formal talks.
Jazmines was granted provisional liberty again by the Taguig RTC.
Both courts, however, had set conditions for their temporary release and participation in the peace talks.
These included their personal appearance before the courts trying their cases.
Police arrested Ladlad earlier this month in Quezon City on illegal possession of firearms charges. He is now detained in Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.
The DOJ said Tiamzon and Silva went into hiding when their bail was canceled after the talks were aborted in November last year.
Baylosis was arrested in February on what he had alleged were trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives. His bail for the firearms charge was set at P100,000.
Jazmines was forced to return to his detention cell at Camp Bagong Diwa after the canceled peace talks last year and after the government sought to declare more than 600 people, including rebel consultants, terrorists.
For the latest bail grant, the NDF consultants were supposed to be free only until the end of the informal talks, set for June 3 to 9 and June 22 to 28 in the Netherlands, and the succeeding formal negotiations in Oslo, Norway, slated for June 27 to 30. They were supposed to return to the Philippines within three days after the talks, the DOJ said.
The government canceled the resumption of peace talks, however.
Apart from moving for return of the communist leaders to jail, the DOJ has also pursued its bid in court for declaration of over 600 persons linked to the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, as terrorists.
This, despite the ruling of the Manila RTC branch 19 last July declaring four key CPP leaders—former Bayan Muna Rep. Satur Ocampo, Baylosis, Victoria Lucia Tauli-Corpus and Jose Melencio Molintas—as non-parties to the case.
On Tuesday, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza held out hope that the President would be open to a revival of peace talks.
“If there’s an opportunity again to talk peace with the CPP-National Democratic Front of the Philippines, I’m sure he will open it,” Dureza told ABS-CBN. He noted that the President had asked the rebels to send him a “final draft” of a peace agreement that he could discuss with his Cabinet.
Dureza also said the planned meeting with rebels and peace consultants may still take place before the end of 2018.
CPP founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison said over the weekend, however, that he will ignore Duterte’s request for a final peace draft.
Sison said Duterte was “simply joking, stupid or crazy” when he announced his proposal last week.
“Duterte seems to imagine that the NDFP is like China which has enough money to bribe him to let it draft a major document for his consent and approval. But he exposes further his inane mind by admitting that he would still need the ultimate approval of the military and police,” he added.
Also on Tuesday, the Department of the Interior and Local Government urged communist rebels and the opposition “not to jump to their own conclusion and discredit the intent” of the recently issued Memorandum Order 32, which ordered troop deployments to Samar, Negros Occidental, Negros Oriental, and the Bicol Region to quell incidents of lawless violence.
“Martial law will not be declared in the country. What MO 32 will do, on the other hand, is to focus military and police presence in those areas where insurgents are active. Let’s not jump to conclusions.
It’s counter-productive,” said DILG Secretary Eduardo M. Año. With Nat Mariano and Francisco Tuyay