MANILA, 4 August 2005 — The government yesterday said it was suspending the immunity granted to senior communist guerrilla leaders, citing their refusal to resume peace negotiations.
Presidential Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita said there was no more justification to allow the rebel leaders to move freely around the country since they have rejected the path to peace.
“The government has indefinitely suspended the joint agreement on safety and immunity guarantees entered into with the National Democratic Front, in view of the latter’s unilateral abandonment of the peace negotiations,” Ermita said.
As Ermita spoke, the military announced plans to send a battalion of army special forces troops, including many trained by US soldiers, to the island of Samar to halt a growing communist guerrilla threat.
Maj. Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, the incoming Philippine Army chief, said he was deploying additional Scout Rangers and Special Forces troops to Samar to join about 3,500 soldiers already fighting New People’s Army guerrillas. Home to one of the poorest populations in the country, the country’s third biggest island located in the east-central region has long been a hotbed of the 36-year-old Marxist insurgency.
Ermita said close to 100 immunity passes had been issued to communist leaders, their staff and bodyguards to facilitate peace talks being brokered by Norway to end more than three decades of rebellion.
NDF leaders pulled out of the talks last year after the Philippine government refused to ask the United States and the European Union to remove the rebel group from their list of terrorist organizations.
Manila had earlier recommended the inclusion of the rebel group in the terrorist lists after NPA guerrillas assassinated a former member of the Philippine House of Representatives.
Ermita said the suspension of the immunity pass will take effect within 30 days but it would be reinstated if the rebels agree to resume negotiations.
“It takes two sides to talk peace and one side has withdrawn, there is no more justification,” he said.
Ruth de Leon, executive director of the NDF’s international information office, said the rebel group had only sought suspension of the talks with the administration of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo — who is facing a threat of impeachment — preferring to wait for a new government.
“The formal talks are postponed,” de Leon said. “There is no point in holding formal talks with the Arroyo regime that has repeatedly placed obstacles on such talks.”
Esperon said the reinforcements are to be drawn from army commands nationwide, including from the south, where troops have been fighting Muslim guerrillas.
“The objective is to protect the localities and project to the people that the Armed Forces of the Philippines is a better and superior force against the New People’s Army,” said Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, military commander in the Samar region.
While communist fighting strength dropped nationwide from 11,260 guerrillas in 2000 to 8,240 last year, the number of rebels in Samar steadily rose from about 600 in 2000 to 1,144 last year, the military said.
Recent offensives have dealt battle setbacks to the insurgents in Samar, the army said. (With input from Agencies)
