📸👀 In case you missed it! (Re-)watch the recording of the webinar: “Free Them All: A Webinar on Political Prisoners in the Philippines“!
The webinar shared important insights into the current situation and struggle of political prisoners in the Philippines and highlighted the urgency of international solidarity campaigns in support of their fights.
FFPS input:
In the pursuit of just and lasting peace in the Philippines, the Filipino people have taken various paths of resistance – the legal national democratic, the revolutionary path of taking up arms and pursuing national and social liberation and all other forms of dissent – against US imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism which are the roots of a social and economic system that breeds injustice, and poverty for the majority of the people.
The realities of exploitation and oppression, of a systematic unpeace under a semi-feudal and semi-colonial system, provide the basis for why so many Filipinos take up arms in revolution.
As Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS), we particularly amplify the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and its allied organizations in their position that a just and lasting peace, a people’s peace, in the Philippines can only be brought about through the people’s democratic revolution that fights for national and social liberation.
This fight is detailed in the NDFP’s 12-point program which offers a vision of a Philippine society based on the needs of the majority of Filipinos. A vision of a nation that is independent from US or other foreign domination, an economy that serves the needs of the people instead of foreign capitalists and a small domestic ruling elite, and a society that is just, democratic, peaceful, and prosperous.
The Philippine government, directed and funded by US imperialism, violently represses all forms of dissent. Through a brutal counter-insurgency communities of peasants and indigenous peoples are kept in “order” and “insurgency free” with a de-facto martial law where civilian rule is toppled over by military rule and bombings and strafing.
As we’ve heard in this webinar, under past regimes as well as the current US-Marcos regime, the Philippine government has also relied on imprisonment to silence dissent and suppress the people’s resistance.
Using trumped up charges with planted evidence and common crime charges, the government aims to hide the existence of political prisoners in the country. This political imprisonment is a blatant violation of the fundamental rights to freedom of thought, expression and association, guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and even under the 1987 Philippine constitution. As the judicial system is also weaponized, these processes are delayed even more and some of the political prisoners, whose charges are dismissed, are slapped with other charges to ensure deprivation of their liberty.
Imprisonment is also used as a weapon against NDFP peace consultants and staff involved in the peace process who have become a target through their political work for a just and lasting peace.
The term “NDFP peace consultants” came into being after 1995, with the signing of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG). This agreement states that the GRP and the NDF would issue Documents of Identification to people involved in the peace process. Individuals with Documents of identification were supposed to have safety and immunity, to ensure their open and free participation in the peace process.
NDFP peace consultants and staff perform important roles in the road to a just and lasting peace. Many of them are leaders and members of mass organizations and unions who are deeply engaged in the struggle for the rights and interests of the masses, and for the people’s desire for national and social liberation. Through this integration they are in the best position to help inform and put forward the people’s demands for a just and lasting peace.
Peace consultants are spread all throughout the many islands of the Philippines and their role in updating the negotiating panel on the situation of the people, on their needs and demands, is an essential contribution to the peace process. They are the pulse that keep the Negotiating Panel informed of the situation on the ground.
Many peace consultants form the various working committees, such as the Reciprocal Working Group on Social and Economic Reforms and Reciprocal Working Committee on the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER), and as members of these committees, they have ensured that the NDFP’s vision advances the people’s agenda for genuine change.
The last list of people with Documents of Identification had around 85 names. However, in practice, the GRP has completely disregarded these signed agreements, leading to the arrests of many NDFP consultants, and the brutal murder of many others including Benito Tiamzon, Wilma Austria, Randy Echanis, and Randy Malayao – and those names are killings that have happened just in the last 5-6 years.
Currently, around 15 NDFP consultants and staff are still held as political prisoners.
The imprisonment of NDFP peace consultants and staff involved in the peace process, is not only a violation of the signed JASIG and a violation of their fundamental rights but also undermines what is left of the peace process between the GRP and the NDFP. It means that the Negotiating Panel has less people in the field supporting the panel and representing the demands of the Filipino people. The continuing incarceration of NDFP peace consultants—such as Vicente Ladlad, Father Frank Fernandez, Adelberto Silva, and many others—represents the insincerety of the GRP in pursuing just and lasting peace.
In this light it is urgent for us to support the call to free all NDFP peace consultants and all political prisoners in the Philippines! So I will close by sharing a bit about some of our current campaign work.
As FFPS we are campaigning to raise international awareness about the struggle of political prisoners and particularly NDFP peace consultants who are incarcerated in the Philippines. To generate international solidarity and support for their release and their advocacies. Our members are producing and distributing materials about political prisoners to highlight their role in the pursuit of just and lasting peace, even from behind bars. We are working to mobilize moral, material, and political support for them, their families and organizations working for justice for and freedom of political prisoners.
This includes a fundraising campaign: “€1 for Freedom,” a two-week global solidarity drive encouraging individuals and organizations to contribute €1 (or local currency) per day for a minimum of 14 days to support the legal defense, humanitarian assistance, and campaign work for political prisoners.
For more information on how to collaborate, please contact us through: https://ffps.info/contact/