On the Fourth Anniversary of Black Valentine’s Day Arrest

I was arrested four years ago – on Black Valentine’s Day – on the eve of the long-stalled resumption of the formal peace talks between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP/GPH).

The principal agenda in the would-be resumption of the formal peace talks was supposed to center on the second of the four substantive agenda in the NDFP-GRP/GPH peace talks, i.e., on Comprehensive Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER).

The first substantive agenda, that centered on respect for human rights, was already agreed upon in 1998, and had resulted in the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). Aside from the CASER, the other remaining agenda – on Political and Constitutional Reforms (PCR) and on End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces (EHDF) – are supposed to immediately follow after the start of and progress in the second substantive agenda.

On my part, as a regular member of the NDFP Socio-Economic Reforms Committee in the NDFP-GRP/GPH Reciprocal Working Committees on Socio-Economic Reforms, I was supposed to directly participate in the slated NDFP-GRP/GPH talks on the socio-economic reforms agenda, with the objective of coming out a unity on CASER.

85 of us, long-since listed as peace talks participants, consultants and other officers and personnel of the NDFP significantly involved in the peace process with the GRP/GPH, are supposed to be protected by the NDFP-GRP/GPH Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and not subjected to surveillance, arrest, detention, torture, trumped-up court charges and other antagonistic acts that would deter our effective participation and work in the peace process.

As I was being arrested on Black Valentine’s Day, I invoked, before the head of the arresting forces, my JASIG protection. But the answer was that their higher-ups insist on the arrest – no matter the JASIG.

I also asked to immediately and directly be able to consult with the People’s Interest Law Center (and its head then, Atty. Romeo Capulong) that serves as legal counsel of the NDFP, its peace panel and consultants in the peace process, and to confer with our attorneys on the matter of my arrest, including on the question of its “legality” (especially as there was no warrant of arrest served at the time of my arrest) and its violation of peace agreements. But the only answer was that all these would have to be coursed through the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), which accordingly has been on top of the situation all along. (I was, however, able to confer with my lawyers, only the next day arranged via other channels.)

The formal peace talks between the NDFP and the GRP/GPH were again stalled after a couple of days, because of the latter’s failure to release the victim of the Black Valentine’s Day Arrest and the other earlier arrested and still-detained NDFP peace talks participants and consultants supposedly protected by the JASIG.

While informal talks on the side continue to seek prospects and favorable conditions for the resumption and advance of formal peace talks, many hurdles and setbacks still need to be resolved and overcome, including:

The continuing detention of NDFP peace talks participants and consultants, together with some 500 other political prisoners;

The continuing failure to account and answer for the subjection to enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings of some NDFP peace talks participants and consultants, their staffs and loved ones;

The further victimizing of detained NDFP peace talks participants and consultants and other political prisoners by swamping us with trumped-up criminalized charges. in violation of the Hernandez Doctrine, and thus keeping us in jail practically indefinitely;

The overly long hibernation and very slow crawl of justice in our cases, all the more prolonging our detention;

The utter lack of concern and effort to solve the many problems of prisoners being long-detained, even if they are minors, elderlies, sickly/incapacitated, mistakenly identified, with cases that have been mixed-up, and other discrepancies in the course of justice;

The very, very poor quality and unhealthy food rations, not even worth half the nominal P50/inmate/day food budget supposedly allotted to us;

Niggardly limiting our access to sunning and exercise in open air to only one hour a week, at the most. This, even if Philippine law and the United Nations Standards state that at least an hour daily of sunning and exercise in open air should be allowed to prisoners;

The abusive “greyhound” operations, supposedly to search for “contrabands”, but – since political prisoners do not have “contrabands” – the resorting to cruel and heartless confiscations, wanton spoilings, and even outright theft of harmless, essential necessities for the humane existence of detainees, like vitamins, nail cutters, long toothbrushes, ballpens, blunt scissors and other materials for writing and artwork, cooking stoves, CDs/DVDs (even on human rights) and the absurd justifications for such. (The confiscation, too, of a typewriter sent by the NDFP peace panel so that detained NDFP peace talks participants and consultants may still be able to continue with some – even if minimum – part of their work for the peace process, while still in jail.)

Human rights violations, heavy and unwarranted repressions and restrictions have escalated recently as a result of the jail authorities’ fascist reactions to the fasting and hunger strike, we, political prisoners, waged here at the Special Intensive Care Area 1 (SICA1) Jail in Camp Bagong Diwa, five days prior to the visit of Pope Francis I and during his five days of actual visit to this country, bringing along with him his call for “mercy and compassion.”

Our 10 days of fasting and hunger strike was an act of self-sacrifice to make loud our calls for our freedom, for justice, for real solutions to social ills, for serious efforts towards lasting.peace in our country.

Our calls emphasized our dire situation as political prisoners – imprisoned because of our struggles for political and social changes in the interest of our people; subjected to severe repressions, reprisals, abuses, deprivations, and other fascist acts by state and jail authorities; made to suffer one of the most rotten and slowest crawl of justice in the world; and frustrated with the long lack of progress in the peace process.

But in reaction to our act of self-sacrifice and our calls, the jail authorities resorted to foul and fascist acts. They violated our rights to the extent of disregarding international protocols on respect for human rights, the United Nation’s norms on the treatment of prisoners, as well as the prevailing state’s own laws.

The whole time we went through our act of self-sacrifice – and even afterwards – our doctors were totally barred from visiting us and checking on our medical conditions. There were instances, when even a lawyer of ours and some of our loved ones were also barred. Many, many visitors from human rights organizations, church organizations, other people’s organizations, and many more other supporters and sympathizers were also cruelly barred.

Worse, the jail authorities even machinated and unleashed malicious and vicious schemes to isolate us, political prisoners, and induce, from other inmates under the hands of leaders of a lumpen prison gang and of those accused by the government as terrorists, intensified antagonisms and orchestrated threats of violence against our lives and limbs. This, by also barring the visitors of all other inmates, and casting the blame for such on the “foolish” (“kalokohan”) hunger strike of political prisoners.

While we do still need to effectively fend off attacks by rotten and fascist jail authorities and their trigger-happy pawns, and more so also need to push for the rectification of the rotten, fake and abusive penal system, we maintain our focus on our prime objective – our fight for freedom, for justice, for social and political causes, and for related serious advances towards lasting peace – all in the interest of the mass of the people we were brought here for and continue to sacrifice for.

In the meantime, it has been four years since the Black Valentine’s Day Arrest …

The fight goes on!

ALAN JAZMINES
NDFP peace consultant
detained at the
Special Intensive Care Area 1
Camp Bagong Diwa,
Taguig City
February 13, 2015

On Justice Guarina’s “Economic Nationalism: Voices from the Past”

The very well-written article “Economic Nationalism: Voices from the Past” (Commentary, Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 24, 2014) was for me quite refreshing, considering that it was surprisingly written by a former high court official, retired Court of Appeals Associate Justice Mario Guarina III.

The article itself is a rarity at this time of the profligacy and dominance of neoliberalism in policy, word and rule in the country.

Justice Guarina’s commentary was a very welcome respite in the face of current mantras of neoliberalism and its mouthpieces in the state and private establishments, trying to make it appear that Asia’s long-standing economic laggard in the Philippines has now become the region’s star economic performer.

Actually, the Philippines has been turning out to be, more and more, one of the region’s worst socio-economic performers, as it now has one of the lowest industrial – and even agricultural – capability, activity and development in the region. It also has one of the largest and most deploring rate of unemployment and poverty in the region.

All this, as a result of several decades of world imperialist-imposed neoliberal economic dominance, policies and programs, that have drastically crippled the country’s industrial and overall socio-economic development and have grossly impoverished the mass of the Filipino people.

More than half a century ago, the voices of a great many advocates of national independence, economic nationalism, industrial development and social progress – notably among them, Claro M. Recto and Lorenzo Tañada – were able to openly wield wide influence in the country and promote policies and programs for these causes.

During the time the “Filipino First” policy was officially adopted and being implemented in the country in an effort to promote national industrialization and socio-economic development, local industries then developed and proliferated in the country, as Justice Guarina recalled: “in a manner unprecedented in our history”, such that “we became the fastest growing Asian economy next only to Japan.”

But imperialist attacks against and dismantling of such, and the local neocolonial puppets’ overly submissive compliance to imperialist attacks, started to take place since the U.S. imperialist-imposed “decontrol” policy of the Diosdado Macapagal regime. This was followed much later by even more comprehensive and more systemically destructive anti-nationalist and anti-national industrialization measures via the global imperialism-imposed neoliberal policies, all under very tight dictation and close supervision by the imperialist-controlled International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization, as well as by U.S. agencies.

Instead of becoming genuinely economically and industrially self-reliant, inclusive and developed, the Philippine economy has consequently become all the more dependent on foreign capital and foreign trade, non-inclusive and underdeveloped, with only external and actually false appearances of “progress”.

The Philippine economy has, in particular, falsely “developed” in recent decades as one of the world’s main cheap assemblers of electronic parts reexported to imperialist countries, providers of ancillary call center and other outsourced back-office business process operations, and suppliers of private household help and other cheap labor in imperialist and other more developed countries.

All these, not quite far from being looked down for being just “miners of gold and hewers of wood” for foreign masters for a long time since about a century ago, as we were overly dependent on traditional agricultural, mining and other raw material exports for survival, amidst rapid and solid industrial and socio-economic development in other countries not as submissive to the imperialist powers.

All these, not far from the Philippine economy now more and more just specializing on catering to the ancillary needs of imperialists and other more developed countries, and the people in the country becoming more and more dependent on such.

Bulk of the country’s income from such has mostly gone to consumption and the development of commerce, services and the related proliferation of commercial buildings and upscale condominiums, while industry and agriculture have fallen and continue to fall way behind.

Justice Guarina’s commentary quite competently touched on problems since the past – and actually up to the present – but did not yet proceed on what necessarily should be done to decisively solve such problems.

In regard to what is to be done, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and allied people’s revolutionary organizations in the country have long since submitted and continue to submit, not only direct to the people but also to the local reigning government (the Government of the Republic of the Philippines or GRP/GPH), the NDFP’s agenda for comprehensive and substantive solutions to the fundamental problems of the country and people. Among such has been the NDFP’s long since proposed Comprehensive Agenda for Socio-Economic Reforms or CASER.

As far back as February 2011, the NDFP and the GRP/GPH were supposed to immediately discuss the CASER in the resumption of their long-stalled peace talks.

But, just a few hours before the resumption of the peace talks, combined military and police forces of the GRP/GPH, with the direct go-signal of their higher ups, treacherously arrested and hauled into jail a long-standing peace consultant of the NDFP and also a regular member of the NDFP’s Committee on Socio-Economic Reforms. This, despite his and fellow peace consultants’ supposed protection from surveillance, arrest, detention, torture and other antagonistic acts that would deter their participation and work related to the peace process. This, actually, in vile effort to tie the hands of those sitting opposite to the GRP/GPH across the negotiation table.

The NDFP peace panel demanded from the GRP/GPH the immediate release of all detained peace consultants, including the then latest one arrested and jailed. The failure – actually, the refusal – of the GRP/GPH to do so resulted in the long stalling once again of the peace talks, including that on socio-economic reforms.

The NDFP continues, in principle and in practice, to press for the resumption of the formal peace talks to be able to comprehensively and substantively discuss with the GRP/GPH, and seek to resolve fundamental socio-economic and political-constitutional problems of the country and people, in the effort to achieve a just and lasting peace. The NDFP always remains open to meetings with the GRP/GPH, for as long as the latter reciprocally remains open and opportunities for serious talks and efforts to resolve standing issues and problems of the people and the country remain available.

In the meantime, the NDFP has kept on pressing the GRP/GPH for the soonest resumption of the long-stalled formal peace talks and, in particular, the start of the talks on CASER. The NDFP will continue to press on such with the outgoing present GRP/GPH regime or, if such is no longer feasible, with a successor regime seriously interested enough in the peace process and open to fundamental changes.

The NDFP is presently hopeful of the possibility of the current GRP/GPH regime’s opening up to the resumption of peace talks with the NDPF in the near future.

If the NDFP-GRP/GPH talks on CASER do pull through and turn out to be successful, then there may be a good opportunity to push for the revival – and actual advance – of real economic nationalism, national industrialization, and other socio-economic reforms that the NDFP sees eye-to-eye with Recto, Tañada, Guarina and other principled and determined advocates of these socio-economic causes in the interest of our country and people, who have already suffered too long from imperialist greed, exploitation and intentional suppression of our development as a country and people.

Alan Jazmines
NDFP peace consultant and
member of the NDFP Committee on Socio-Economic Reforms,
presently detained at the Special Intensive Care Area Jail
Camp Bagong Diwa, Bicutan, Taguig City

Father’s Day for a political prisoner (from High Blood, Inquirer)

By Alan Jazmines | Posted by poldet on June 17, 2012 | As Father’s Day comes and I remain a political prisoner (at present in the 16th month of my third imprisonment and the 115th month of the total time I have been behind bars, or almost 10 years now), I recall the close to four decades that I have been greatly distanced—physically, at least—from my sons, Carlos Andres (Dimpy) and Arthur Victor.

Barely a year after I gained freedom in late 1977 from my first martial law detention, I could not help but notice the state’s continued surveillance of me. I observed, for one, that on the second floor of an apartment unit across the street, there was a mounted camera constantly trained at our house in Sampaloc, Manila. The windows were newly heavily tinted, but in the early morning and late afternoon when sunlight was oblique and its reflections weak, the mounted camera could be discerned behind the tinted windows.

I thus decided it would be safer for me and more fruitful for my work in the national democratic revolutionary movement if I no longer remained aboveground and an easy target of foul play, especially with the unremitting extrajudicial killings and other fascist acts.

Having noticed early on that we could engage in intelligent discussions even in their tender years (Dimpy was then seven, Arthur five), I talked intimately with my sons. I explained to them the ongoing war between the rich and the poor. I told them that the army of the poor and miserable would require my full-time work, and that my problem with the army of the rich and powerful required me to become unavailable as their target.

They were serious in our talk, and seemed to think deeply about what I was saying. They asked incisive questions, such as what was the difference between the rich and the poor, and I responded in the simplest terms I considered they could understand. I shared with them the cause for which I have been fighting and sacrificing so much.

I could see from their questions and in their eyes that they understood what I was explaining, appreciated my work, and respected the step I was taking.

I did not realize how deeply their understanding of what I am and what I am doing had sunk until sometime later, when one of them vehemently objected to his grade school teacher’s writing on the blackboard “Rebels are bad.” My son stood up in protest and walked out, saying loudly: “My father is a rebel, and he is not bad.”

Sometime later I made an unscheduled visit to my sons at their Lourdes School in La Loma, Quezon City, and chanced upon the teacher in the classroom. It was break time and the boys were not in class. I introduced myself to the teacher, who expressed surprise at my surprise visit, and very eagerly helped look for my sons until we found them having a snack at the school cafeteria. She smiled happily at the family reunion.

I eventually heard the whole story from the boys’ mother. Right after my son’s protest at what was written on the blackboard, the teacher arranged for a meeting with the mother to discuss the incident. The mother explained what was behind the boy’s objection, and the teacher was able to understand his behavior. This was apparently why she was glad and helpful when we met in my son’s classroom and subsequently joined me in looking for the boys.

For a number of years hence I would visit my sons once in a while, except when I would stay quite long in a distant countryside. But for more than a dozen years before my latest imprisonment, I was unable to see them. The most I could do was to send them letters, even if replies were few and far between.

It was because members of my family were under very close surveillance, with their telephone lines bugged. A younger brother, since departed, recalled that when he was going home to our family residence in Parang, Marikina, at 2 a.m., he saw a pair of intelligence agents posted at a jeepney stop nearby. My mother noticed that she was constantly trailed whenever she went out. An adopted nephew was even abducted, tortured for a couple of days, and just dropped on a street, with red, black and blue marks all over his body due to the severe beating he received.

The fascists wanted to know if I had at any time met with the family. They could not make him talk, not only because he is deaf-mute but also because I had in fact not met with the family for decades.

Someone told me in a letter that Dimpy’s reading of our message at the opening of our exhibit, “Painting Freedom,” at the Sining Kamalig art gallery on Dec. 8, 2011, was “a stupendous, oratorical delivery” that made a strong impact on those who were present. I was also told that at the celebration of my mother’s 91st birthday, it was Arthur who read my letter to his  lola, which touched her a lot.

It is only now, in this current imprisonment, that I have been able to see my sons and other family members again.

But because of work and other circumstances (one is living abroad), my sons are not able to visit often. Still I am very grateful for the respect, love and support that they continue to give me even after decades of my being an absentee dad.

This feeling serves as an oasis in the midst of the repression and hardship that I and more than 350 other political prisoners continue to suffer under the prevailing unjust structure that needs to be radically changed into a liberated, democratic, modern, pro-people and progressive system.

We remain resolute in our struggle for radical social change for the sake of the fathers and mothers and their sons and daughters.

Alan Jazmines is a peace consultant of the National Democratic Front and is detained at the PNP Custodial Center in Camp Crame.