THE Philippine government has agreed with the National Democratic Front (NDF) to reconstitute the list of its consultants, who shall be immune from arrest, under the Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantees (Jasig).
The decision was reached during the second day of the formal peace process between both parties in Oslo, Norway.
In a statement released Wednesday, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) said the NDF leaders informed the government panel that the list would contain the names of 54 consultants who are classified as "publicly-known" and "assumed names" of 87 guerilla leaders who are still underground but involved in the consultation for the peace process.
It could be recalled that peace talks between the government and the NDF bogged down after their last formal negotiations in February 2011 under the administration of former President Benigno Aquino III due to the demand of the NDF to release its detained consultants covered by Jasig.
However, the previous government insisted that there was no way to check who among the rebel consultants are covered by Jasig since the diskette containing the list, which was kept by a third party, was destroyed.
Since then, no formal talks ever happened. There was a move to resume the negotiation through a special track in 2013, but again this did not push through.
Aside from the reconstitution of Jasig, the other two major issues that were settled in the ongoing talks were the affirmation of previously-signed agreements, and accelerated process for negotiations, including the timeline for the completion of the remaining substantive agenda for the talks: socio-economic reforms; political and economic reforms; and end of hostilities and disposition of forces, including the Joint Monitoring Committee.
The agreements that were re-affirmed include The Hague Joint Declaration of 1992, Breukelen Joint Statement of 1994, the Jasig, and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CAHRHIL).
To accelerate the pace of peace negotiations, both panels agreed to activate the Reciprocal Working Committee on the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER) as well as the Reciprocal Working Groups (RWGs) on Political and Constitutional Reforms (PCR) and End of Hostilities-Disposition of Forces (EOH-DOF).
Government chief negotiator and Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said both panels also agreed to exert best efforts to complete discussions on socio-economic reforms within six months so that a comprehensive agreement on the issue may be signed at the panel level.
Bello said only two of the five issues up for discussions in the Oslo talks remain unresolved, but these would be negotiated on Thursday. These are the mode of interim ceasefire and amnesty proclamation for the release of all detained political prisoners, subject to concurrence by Congress. (SDR/Sunnex)