NDF peace consultant denies criminal charges

I am a consultant of the National Democratic Front (NDF) in its peace negotiations with the Philippine government. I helped prepare the labor and economic agenda in the 1987 peace negotiation and in the current peace talks between the Philippine government and the NDF. I am committed to the struggle for a just and lasting peace and to paving a path by which our country can get its people out of the quagmire of crisis, poverty, mendicancy and corruption that we currently find ourselves in.

Contrary to the claims of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, I have a Jasig (Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees) documentation of identification, with the assumed named “Percival Rojo” and number ND 978229. I have been a trade union organizer since the martial law period.

My wife Rosanna Cabusao and companion, Isidro de Lima, were arrested on June 1, 2015, in Molino, Bacoor, Cavite, by some 30 members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group of the Philippine National Police. Cabusao is a researcher/consultant of the Crispin B. Beltran Resource Center and a founding member of Gabriela.

The Philippine government and the AFP have criminalized the work that I do as a peace consultant. In fact, they have arrested and detained peace consultants like myself based on trumped-up criminal charges and planted evidence. They have consistently disregarded and violated the Jasig between the Philippine government and the NDF.

There are 17 NDF peace consultants among the 528 political prisoners in the country today.

I surmise that I am made to appear as the new secretary general of the Communist Party of the Philippines so that the AFP and and PNP could collect a higher monetary reward or bounty for my arrest and for psywar operations. I categorically deny any involvement in the trumped-up multiple charges against me. All accusations hurled against me, my wife Rosanna Cabusao and my companion Isidro de Lima, are false, malicious and baseless.

—ADELBERTO SILVA,

NDFP peace consultant,

DI number ND 978229

Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-National Capital Region