MALACANANG SAYS GOVT READY FOR NPA RETALIATORY ATTACKS

By Philippines News Agency

March 23, 2014 10:23 PM

MANILA — Following the arrest of top officials of the Community Part of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), Malacanang on Sunday said the government is ready for possible retaliatory attacks.

“We are always aware, fully aware of the possibility of retaliation, and our armed forces are always ready to defend the population,” Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda said in an interview on state-run dzRB Radyo ng Bayan.

Lacierda’s statement followed the arrest Saturday afternoon of CPP-NPA chairman Benito Tiamzon and his wife Wilma Austria, the secretary general, in Barangay Zaragosa, Aluginsan town, Cebu on Saturday.

While CPP founder Joma Sison had earlier declared that the arrest of the Tiamzon couple will not cripple their revolutionary movement, Lacierda said that he would rather “leave it at that.”

National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace panel chief Luis Jalandoni has slammed the arrest of the Tiamzon couple, who he said were both protected by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig) despite their positions in the CPP.

JASIG not operative – Lacierda

Lacierda said that the Jasig is not operative since its files, which were saved in floppy disks, could no longer be opened.

“Hindi po operative ang Jasig po ngayon dahil nga po hindi ho mabuksan ‘yung files,” Lacierda said. “Hindi po natin kasalanan ‘yon. Sila po ang nagbigay ng listahan ng Jasig list po.

“It’s in a diskette, it can no longer be decrypted, so it was not our fault,” he added.

The Malacanang official then cited Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief of staff Gen. Emmanuel Bautista calling on other CPP-NPA members to “bring down their arms and resign to the fold of the law.”

He also cited Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) Secretary Teresita Quintos-Deles saying that the government is “always ready for talks to address a doable and time bound substantive agenda.”

“We are not the ones with a problem,” Lacierda said, stressing that the government remained open for peace talks, “and it’s them [communist rebels] who are setting up barriers to the peace talks.”