By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Member, NDFP National Executive Committee
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) conveys its firm support for the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) Second Session on the Philippines. The NDFP salutes the Filipino people’s organizations, alliances and institutions which have initiated this PPT Second Session on the Philippines to indict the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime and the US for the atrocious extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations, economic plunder and transgression of the Filipino people’s sovereignty.
By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Member, NDFP National Executive Committee
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) conveys its firm support for the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) Second Session on the Philippines. The NDFP salutes the Filipino people’s organizations, alliances and institutions which have initiated this PPT Second Session on the Philippines to indict the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime and the US for the atrocious extra-judicial killings and other human rights violations, economic plunder and transgression of the Filipino people’s sovereignty.
The NDFP warmly greets PPT President Salvatore Senese, General Secretary Dr. Gianni Tognoni and other PPT officers and members. The NDFP deeply appreciates the PPT’s First Session on the Philippines held 26 years ago from 30 October to 3 November 1980 in Antwerp, Belgium. We are glad that Dr. Gianni Tognoni who moderated the First Session as General Secretary of the PPT and Prof. Francois Houtart, a member of the jury then, will be playing key roles in this Second Session, as Moderator and President of the Jury, respectively.
The PPT in its First Session on the Philippines issued the verdict that the dictator Ferdinand Marcos and the US were guilty of crimes against the Filipino people. It ruled that Marcos was unfit to govern and his regime was deprived of legitimate standing as a government in international society. It declared the NDFP as legitimate representative of the Filipino people. It has the legal right according to the Algiers Declaration to enforce the rights of the Filipino people by armed struggle if necessary. The PPT further concluded that the armed conflict between the Marcos regime and the Filipino and Bangsa Moro peoples qualified in international law as a condition of belligerency and that, accordingly, the parties should respect fully the provisions of the Geneva Conventions on the laws of war.
We vigorously support the Filipino people’s organizations, alliances and institutions in their formal complaints of violations of civil and political rights, particularly summary executions, enforced disappearances, massacres, torture and other attacks on the democratic rights of the people. We likewise stand with them in indicting the accused Arroyo regime and the US for violations of economic, social and cultural rights through “free market” globalization, transgression of their economic sovereignty and national patrimony, economic plunder and the destruction of the environment.
Furthermore, we support their complaint against violations of the Filipino people’s right to national self-determination and liberation through imposition of the US war of terror, US military intervention, and the perpetration of crimes against humanity and war crimes. We condemn the baseless “terrorist” listing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New People’s Army, and the NDFP Chief Political Consultant, Prof. Jose Maria Sison.
We are prepared to participate in the PPT Second Session on the Philippines. In particular, we are ready with testimonies, documents and other evidence on the enforced disappearance of NDFP Consultants, Prudencio Calubid with his wife Celine, and two staff members, Rogelio Calubad and his son Glenn, Leopoldo Ancheta, and the summary execution of NDFP Consultant Sotero Llamas, among others.
We wish the PPT Second Session on the Philippines the utmost success in upholding, defending and advancing the rights of the Filipino people to national and social liberation.
