Mr. President:

Allow me to briefly clarify some of the sweeping allegations and misinterpretations about the outcome of our meeting and the agreement entered into by the humanitarian mission led by Archbishop Fernando Capalla and myself with the leaders of the National Democratic Front (NDF) in the Netherlands.  As one of the parties actively trying to secure the release of the captives of the NPA and one of the three major signatories to the Utrecht agreement and communiqué, I feel that I am morally obliged to clarify certain important issues on the matter.

My participation in the release process started in the first week of March 1999, when I was directly contacted by the NDF leadership in the Netherlands.  Subsequently, NDF consultant Sotero Llamas contacted me in Manila.  They conveyed to me the possibility, as well as their desire, to release Brig. Gen. Victor Obillo and Capt. Eduardo Montealto.  They asked my participation  to help facilitate the process of release, as well as to initially explore government’s response to the necessity of the cessation of military operations in the area, where the turnover would most likely take place.  I accepted this invitation to participate and help facilitate this release.  Yes, I did so out of firm humanitarian conviction.  It is also my strong belief that a release of the captives would be one important and immediate step to remove a major stumbling block in the recently-stalled peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the NDF.

I would also like to put on record, Mr. President, that for the most part of my discreet participation to help in the release process of the captives, I kept no less than His Excellency President Joseph Estrada informed who encouraged me to continue my dialogues with the NDF.  This can be attested by Department of Agrarian Reform Secretary Horacio Morales who was present during my meetings with President Estrada and in some meeting with the NDF leaders in Manila.

In response, I contacted the Obillo and Montealto families and also made further contacts with the NDF consultants in Manila and their leaders in the Netherlands.  I also placed Mrs. Obillo in direct communication with the leaders of the NDF in the Netherlands.  They assured Mrs. Obillo that her husband was in safe hands.  Sometime last week, I was asked by the NDF leaders in the Netherlands to come to a meeting in Utrecht, where we could discuss the modalities of the release.  I made it very clear to them that I would only go the Netherlands if they gave me prior assurance of their commitment to release the captives unilaterally.  Having received their assurance, I decided to go to the Netherlands last March 15.

At the outset of our meeting in the Netherlands, I explicitly clarified to the NDF and the Davao-based humanitarian group headed by Archbishop Fernando Capalla, that I did not come as a negotiator of the government, but as an invited and interested advocate of peace, whose sole intention was to help facilitate the safe and expeditious release of the captives.

Some quarters have questioned why the Davao-based humanitarian group and I have affixed our respective signatures on a memorandum of agreement with the NDF that:
cited the People’s Democratic Government and the exercise of its authority in the release of its own prisoners of war; asked for a four-week cessation of GRP’s offensive military operations and deployment of forces in a specified area in Mindanao to cover the period immediately prior, during and after the release.

Regarding the mention of the People’s Democratic Government, and its exercise of authority in the release of the captives, I would like to draw your attention to the fact that in the document, these lines were clearly and deliberately placed under a separate section, entitled NDFP’s Basis of Release. 

This section is explicitly a self-assertion of the NDF’s own political rationale for releasing the captives and does not, in any way, reflect the views and beliefs of Bishop Capalla’s group and myself.  In fact, in the meeting proper, Bishop Capalla’s group and I made it clear that we did not agree, nor share the political rationale of the NDF.  This self-assertion of the NDF’s political standpoint was therefore clearly set apart from the items mutually agreed upon, as expressed in the document.

Mr. President, one can of course easily engage in political nitpicking and question why, in the first place, did the humanitarian mission and I allow such self-serving political statements by the NDF to be part of the document of agreement at all.  In response, I would like to state here that such political nitpicking is misplaced, and a gross misjudgment for the following reasons:

First.  The NDF’s decision and commitment to immediately release the captives is clearly a unilateral action.  Each interested party such as the government, the humanitarian mission or myself would be so unreasonable if it simply wanted to reap the fruits of another party’s unilateral action, yet denying the latter the opportunity to explain the basis of its one-sided action.  It is intrinsic in any unilateral exercise that both the action and the articulation of its basis remain a prerogative of the doer.  In political and military conflicts the world over, unilateral actions are a common phenomenon, as are bilateral actions among antagonistic parties.  Whoever exercises unilateral action retains the option to explain its action on its own terms.  There is nothing puzzling about this.  This is the key difference between a unilateral act and a bilateral act, whose justification is reciprocation and mutual concurrence  between two sides.  Indeed, the NDF explained its unilateral action by making a grandiose political claim, the substance of which I do not agree with, but that is another matter.

I believe, Mr. President, that there was no way that the NDF would commit to the release of the captives without simultaneously stating and putting in writing, their own political rationale behind such an act.  On the other hand, prudence dictated that we allow the NDF to convey its-self defined rationale for the release, in return for a written and explicit commitment on their part to release the captives.  Prohibiting the NDF to even express its own reasons for unilaterally releasing their captives would have been interpreted as bad faith and extreme unreasonableness on our part.  But while we did allow them to convey their own political convictions, we also made it clear that in no uncertain terms were these being expressed with our concurrence or agreement.  Mr. President, I believe what was paramount and expedient at that juncture, was to win the freedom of our captured officers and soldiers – without, however, having to pay the price of registering any approval nor shared commitment to the NDF’s own justification of the release.

Second.  Archbishop Capalla’s group and I, as signatories, did not represent the government.  And, neither were we in a political negotiation meeting with the NDF.  It is therefore unfair that Archbishop Capalla’s group and I should be expected to shoulder the specific responsibility of interrogating and censoring the NDF’s political stance on this occasion.  Such a task belongs to the GRP Panel in political negotiations with the NDF.  Our meeting in Utrecht was entirely of a different nature.  The clear context and exclusive agenda of our meeting and agreement was only the modalities of the release of the captives – no more, no less.

In the past days, certain administration officials have also strongly questioned and subsequently overread the four-week cessation of offensive deployment of troops by the government asked by the NDF as a modality of release.  More often, political cynicism, deep distrust, and alarmist attitudes underpin these critical remarks.  Instead, I would like to state that this provision in the agreement was clearly intended and solely cited within the context of facilitating the captives’ turnover.

To these cynics and sabre-rattlers who vehemently oppose a four-week cessation of hostilities in a fixed area, I ask: Hasn’t the government declared a cessation of hostilities with the NPA in selected areas or all throughout the archipelago many times in the past during turnovers of past captives?  During the Christmas seasons?  And during the failed negotiation of 1987?  Haven’t many of this cessation of hostilities lasted more than a week or a month?  Did the government concede or lose any territorial control as a result of these temporary cease-fires?  I further ask, Mr. President, what is thirty days of silenced guns in a 30-year-old conflict, which could at least save four precious human lives, return them to their loved ones, and pave the way for the resumption of the peace talks?

Mr. President, this is not the time for the government nor the NDF to indulge in misplaced political nitpicking or grandstanding.  Neither is it the time for the two sides to intensify their psywar tactics nor to engage in sabre-rattling.  There are four officers and men of the AFP out there who have suffered not only the unfortunate fate of abduction and captivity but have now sadly become victims and unwitting pawns of each side’s political posturing and maneuvering. 

I refuse to be embroiled in this spiraling psycho-political warfare.  As an advocate of peace and a public servant, I would rather devote my time and energy to help bring peace and stability to our nation, which our people long deserve.

For at the end of the day, Mr. President, the men and women on the streets out there would ask us, their elected officials, what have we done to end this tragic impasse and bring the captives back to the bosom of their families?  What have we done to move the peace negotiations forward and eventually bring this 30-year-old internal conflict to an end?

The wives, children, friends, and loved ones of General Victor Obillo, Captain Eduardo Montealto, Chief Inspector Roberto Banal, and Sgt. Alipio Lozada, more than anyone, have had to suffer the consequences of the armed conflict.  This war of attrition between our government and the insurgents is not always about might and right.  Sometimes, it is about husbands and fathers not being able to return home, wives and children being caught in the crossfire.  When we joined the humanitarian mission in Utrecht, Netherlands on our own account, we had thought:  this time, the husbands and fathers would go home.

I have been criticized by some sectors for what they had called conferring a status of belligerency on the insurgent forces or for ignoring the solemn duty to protect the Constitution and for committing an act of treason because of an agreement we had forged that would effect the release of the officers by setting the manner, time frame, and covered areas, of the release.  The negative statements overlook one thing, which for me is most important:  that these men Filipino officers who have offered their professional lives to protecting the country --will be released, without bloodshed, without violence, without killings and execution.  Does this, Mr. President, constitute an act of treason?

It is now a matter of refining agreement on the time frame and covered areas.

I was guided, too, by our Constitution, which says:

Article 2, Section 5:
“The maintenance of peace and order, the protection of life, liberty, and property, and the promotion of the general welfare are essential for the enjoyment by all the people of the blessings of democracy.”

and, Article 2, Section 11:
“The State values the dignity of every human persons and guarantees full respect for human rights.”

The National Democratic Front has been calling itself a democratic united front for decades; the New People’s Army has been calling itself a people’s army for thirty years; they have been calling their organization a People’s Democratic Government”; yet none of these have conferred on them any status.  When the NDF called itself a People’s Democratic Government in the document, it was the NDF talking, a unilateral and self-serving assertion of the NDF.  This does not in any way indicate recognition by us of their self-declared status.  No individual, not even a senator can confer a status of belligerency on any insurgent force, because this can be conferred only by sovereign states under international law, after the insurgents have attained certain conditions, such as:

• an organized civil government that has control and direction over the armed struggle launched by the rebels;
• occupation of a substantial portion of the national territory;
• seriousness of the struggle, which must be so widespread thereby leaving no doubt as to the outcome; and
• willingness, on the  part of the rebels, to observe the rules and customs of war.

At this juncture, I wish to laud President Joseph Estrada, who today, issued a statement on the release of the abducted government personnel.  The President expressed his appreciation for the selfless humanitarian efforts of Bishop Capalla and his group… and Senator Legarda, for working to serve the true ends of justice, and securing the release of these hapless and innocent victims.

Furthermore, in this same statement, the President has authorized the Secretary of National Defense “to declare unilaterally a suspension of military operations effective on Palm Sunday until the date of actual release, and a reasonable and sufficient time thereafter, in all release areas, to effect a safe and secure release for the five victims and all persons and groups involved in the release process”.

We salute this impressive show of compassion and magnanimity and urge all peace-loving Filipinos to follow the President’s exhortation that we use the lessons of this experience to gain renewed determination to push forward with the peace process.

And with this happy turn of events, this representation is vindicated.

Thank you, Mr. President.