This developed as a band of communist rebels ambushed an Army patrol near the town of Bontoc in Mt. Province, leaving two soldiers wounded, one of them critically.
Netherlands-based Luis Jalandoni, head of the National Democratic Front (NDF), the political wing of the local communist insurgency movement, said Buan would be set free after they receive a copy of President Arroyo’s order suspending for one month military operations against the New People’s Army (NPA), the military arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
Jalandoni asked the Red Cross and the government negotiating panel to "take appropriate" moves to pave the way for the release of Buan before April 17.
Buan was seized by NPA rebels in Quezon province in July 1999.
Police Chief Inspector Abelardo Martin, who was also captured and used as a human shield by the rebels after attacking the police headquarters of Dolores town, also in Quezon in December 1999, was killed last week when his captors traded shots with troops from the Army’s elite Scout Rangers in General Nakar town. He was buried yesterday in his hometown of Sariaya, Quezon.
The shootout prompted the President to order a unilateral 30-day suspension of military offensives (SOMO) against the NPA.
Jalandoni and Jose Ma. Sison, founding chairman of the CPP-NDF and other rebel leaders based in the Netherlands, announced they were ready to resume peace negotiations with the government "at a mutually acceptable foreign neutral venue."
The NPA mounted the ambush on Sunday morning, the eve of implementation of the SOMO covering the Southern Tagalog provinces, posing a serious threat to the resumption of the peace talks.
Meanwhile, Malacañang said the government has not committed itself to holding the peace negotiations outside the Philippines.
Executive Secretary Renato de Villa scored the government’s peace panel led by chief negotiator former Justice Secretary Silvestre Bello III for talking freely to the media about the result of their exploratory talks with the Netherlands-based NDF leaders.
"Their mission is informal, unofficial meeting. As far as I know, they are not authorized to make any preliminary announcements or to sign any agreement," De Villa stressed.
"Perhaps, we need to do something about this because the other side has that inclination to get ahead of us. They (NDF leaders) always want to get one over us. We hope this will not happen again," De Villa said.
Acting Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita, concurrent presidential adviser on the peace process, said; "As far as we are concerned, we wanted the talks to be held in the Philippines."
The government panel, which included Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza, was scheduled to return to Manila yesterday and report to the President.
De Villa also hit back at Sison who accused him earlier of being a member of a "militarist group" out to undermine the peace process.
Sison claimed that De Villa instructed the peace panel to exclude the issue on the release of political prisoners from the peace negotiations.
"I don’t know what he means by that. In truth, we just hope they become sincere in our talks and avoid these broadsides," De Villa said.
"If we really want the peace that we hope to attain, we should avoid bringing other things not related to the peace talks," he added.
In another development, former Executive Secretary Edgardo Angara expressed support to the projected resumption of peace talks with the communist rebels.
"As President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo often says, it is time for healing and I can see no better opportunity for reconciliation than a lasting peace settlement with the NDF," said Angara, who is again running for senator under the opposition Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino-Puwersa ng Masa coalition.
He predicted that development and alleviation of mass poverty would follow the signing of a peace agreement with the communist insurgents.
The church-based Kairos Philippines also hailed the impending resumption of peace talks between the government and the CPP-NDF-NPA.
Fr. Jose Dizon, convenor of Kairos, urged the government to also address the root cause of the armed conflict.
"Genuine peace can only be attained when justice is met. This can only be done by addressing the root causes of the armed conflict; poverty, strife, oppression and inequality," Dizon said.
Kairos is a newly formed Catholic charismatic group advocating spiritual and social salvation.
It was one of the private complainants in the impeachment trial of former President Joseph Estrada. - Marichu Villanueva, Efren Danao, Sandy Araneta