By FIDEL V. AGCAOILI
Chairperson, NDFP Human Rights Committee
Defense Secretary Norberto Gonzales is accountable for the arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and other violations of the human rights of the 43 health professionals and workers in Morong, Rizal by high officers and units of the Second Infantry Division of the Philippine Army. The gross attack on the human rights of the victims carries the trade mark and paranoid style of Gonzales.
No less than his immediate predecessor Gilberto Teodoro has slapped the face of Gonzales for failing last week to direct his military subordinates to comply with the Supreme Court order to present the 43 abductees to the Court of Appeals.
Gonzales should resign if he has any sense of shame left. But instead, he remains silent on the issue of the Morong 43 which has already caught the attention of the nation and the whole world and he tries in vain to deflect attention from the issue by speculating on the composition of the central leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines and by arrogantly announcing that his reactionary government would no longer negotiate with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) negotiating panel headed by Luis Jalandoni.
I hereby inform Gonzales and the rest of the reactionary government of Gloria M. Arroyo that the NDFP negotiating panel continues to enjoy the confidence of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and all other revolutionary forces which compose the NDFP. Prof. Jose Maria Sison also continues to enjoy the confidence of the NDFP Negotiating Panel as its chief political consultant.
The NDFP Negotiating Panel has no interest in negotiating with a lameduck regime with a lifespan of less than three months, especially because this regime continues to daydream about destroying the revolutionary mass movement of the Filipino people with brute military force and cheap psywar tricks that include fake localized peace talks with its own military troops and distribution of doleouts to them.
