Netherlands sharing of intelligence information with Philippine government
will endanger the lives of Arroyo political opponents
By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
The NDFP has reliable information that Deputy National Security Adviser Pedro Cabuay, Jr. and Director General Cesar Garcia of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency are in The Netherlands to request Dutch authorities to share with them what they presume as a wealth of intelligence that the Dutch police have gathered from the raids on the NDFP Information Office and six houses simultaneous with the arrest of Prof. Sison on 28 August 2007.
Netherlands sharing of intelligence information with Philippine government
will endanger the lives of Arroyo political opponents
By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
The NDFP has reliable information that Deputy National Security Adviser Pedro Cabuay, Jr. and Director General Cesar Garcia of the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency are in The Netherlands to request Dutch authorities to share with them what they presume as a wealth of intelligence that the Dutch police have gathered from the raids on the NDFP Information Office and six houses simultaneous with the arrest of Prof. Sison on 28 August 2007.
The NDFP had previously warned the Dutch authorities through its lawyer Mr. Bernard Tomlow on 5 September that they would be held accountable if more extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of political opponents of the Arroyo regime would occur as a result of sharing of intelligence information to Philippine intelligence agencies or to the CIA. Professor François Houtart and Secretary General Gianni Tognoni of the Permanent Peoples' Tribunal have also expressed deep concerns over the safety of the Tribunal's witnesses, after learning that the Dutch authorities also seized visual, written and recorded material related to the Tribunal's Second Session on the Philippines.
Generals Cabuay, Jr. and Garcia are directly responsible for implementing the Arroyo government's national internal security plan Oplan Bantay Laya, which has resulted to nearly 900 extrajudicial killings and more than 200 enforced disappearances of known political activists and leaders of opposition groups. The enforced disappearance of NDFP Consultant Rogelio Calubad and his son Gabriel on 17 June 2006 in Calauag, Quezon province was perpetrated by forces of the Southern Luzon Command (SOLCOM) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), then under the command of General Cabuay, Jr.
Sharing information with Philippine intelligence agencies and the CIA would pose a very real danger to the lives of those who have been in communication with the NDFP in connection with the peace negotiations and other matters.
We wish to remind the Dutch government that the Arroyo regime has already been censured by the Amnesty International, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, the European Union and other governments for the rampant extrajudicial killings of nearly 900 and enforced disappearances of more than 200 political opponents of Arroyo.
The whole world knows about the capacity of the Arroyo regime to commit the worst forms of human rights violations. The Dutch government has already helped Arroyo in deflecting attention from her crimes by arresting Prof. Jose Maria Sison for obviously trumped up charges. It would be complicit to future extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances in the Philippines if it shares intelligence information to Philippine intelligence agencies.
