According to a Palace statement, the reception included a "cordial" 90-minute meeting between the President and NDF chief negotiators Luis Jalandoni and his wife Connie Ledesma.
The statement quoted Jalandoni as saying the popular uprising that toppled the Estrada administration and installed Mrs. Arroyo last January had improved relations between the go-vernment and the communists.
Mrs. Arroyo, for her part, expressed hope that the negotiations which will start April 27 in Oslo, Norway will be successful. She said the peace talks will look into the root causes of the 32-year-old communist rebellion.
"The President assured them that her government will do everything to fulfill whatever will be agreed upon on socio-economic and political reforms during the peace talks," Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Eduardo Ermita told The STAR.
Ermita said the President assured the NDF negotiators she would be in contact with the government negotiating panel, to be led by former Justice Secretary Silvestre Bello III.
The Bello panel, composed of Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza, lawyer Chito Gascon, Rene Sarmiento and Karen Tañada, will fly to Oslo, Norway on Wednesday for the formal opening of the negotiations.
Ermita said the Bello panel will stay in Oslo for about one week and return to Manila on May 1 to report to the President.
"They cannot stay that long there in Oslo because it will be very expensive for us. Perhaps, we can get them later on to agree to negotiate here in our country," Ermita added.
Ermita also stressed the Bello panel are under strict instructions "not tosign any temporary agreements" with the NDF.
"That has to be cleared with the home office. They can call me up by long distance and I will relay these matters to the President and the (Cabinet) Cluster E (on national security and political developments)," Ermita said.
"They will not sign any joint communique or agreement without first clearing with use here in Manila so that these matters can be discussed by the Cabinet Cluster E," Ermita said. The government has been conducting intermittent talks with the rebels over the past six years and has forged at least 10 agreements except on the disbandment of communist forces.
Friday’s reception was the first formal meeting between the President and the NDF negotiators who arrived in Manila on April 8 from their international headquarters in the Netherlands.
The negotiators attended a church-organized "solidarity conference" with government negotiators.
The NDF negotiators have been holding consultations with member-organizations in preparation for the peace talks.
The negotiators are set to leave for Oslo on Monday, the Palace said.
During the solidarity conference, Jalandoni expressed hope the government would fulfill its obligations under a human rights accord it had forged with the Ramos administration.
Called the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), the Estrada administration refused to recognize the accord because it supposedly called for the release of all prisoners, including the convicted killers of US Army Col. James Rowe.
A local court found Donato Continente and Juanito Itaas guilty of conspiring to ambush and kill Rowe in 1987 outside a US military facility in Quezon City.
The US government has since objected to any move to release the two convicts while the NDF has continued to demand their release.
"With the support and pressure of the forces of people power 2, we believe President Arroyo will carry out the release of all political prisoners," Jalandoni said.
While the NDF appreciates that 43 political prisoners have been released by the Arroyo administration, Jalandoni said there are still 200 more in prisons throughout the country.
Jalandoni cited the cases of Continente and Itaas as well as that of Lorna Baba-Rivera, who was allegedly picked up by military intelligence in Pidigan, Abra for her supposed involvement in the assassination of former communist rebel Conrado Balweg. — Marichu Villanueva, Sandy Araneta