Press Release
December 11, 2007

PRESS STATEMENT SENATOR
M.A. MADRIGAL ON LEDAC

As a matter of principle, I chose not to attend the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) to be convened by Mrs. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo today on "the Amnesty Proclamation" for alleged members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People's Army.

As Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Peace, Unity and National Reconciliation, it is my view that, Amnesty should not be used as a political weapon. The Arroyo Administration must not use amnesty for devious propaganda purposes. Even before Congress can consider Presidential Proclamation 1377, we must undertake first a review of all previous amnesty proclamations, the performance of the agencies concerned, including the use of the funds. As Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Peace, Unification and Reconciliation, I have filed Senate Resolution no. 130 for this purpose.

Beginning with the limited amnesties declared at the height of the Hukbalahap rebellion of the 1940s and 1950s , the Philippines has had a long history of such programs. During the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos, there were at least five Presidential Proclamations (10, 10-A, 347, 348 and 723) covering communist groups, military rebels and Muslim secessionist rebels, even soldiers and policemen involved in counterinsurgency operations.

To be effective and workable in bringing about durable and lasting peace, amnesty requires the active cooperation of the armed groups to address the basic causes that push them to commit rebellion. Amnesty is not a separate or isolated act that can be divorced from the very process of negotiations or seen as a mere palliative to reduce violence or diminish rebel ranks. It is an integral component of the larger peace process that in most successful cases has been the product or outcome of a negotiated political settlement pegged on a principled and peaceful resolution of the internal armed conflict - "with neither blame nor surrender, but with dignity for all concerned."

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