Press Release
July 5, 2006

PIMENTEL SAYS JAMBYS EFFORTS TO REACH OUT
 TO CPP LEADERS A NOBLE ACT

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Nene Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today advised the Arroyo government not to be too paranoid about Senator Jamby Madrigals meeting with top leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines in The Netherlands motivated by her desire to help in the search for lasting solutions to the decades old communist insurgency.

Pimentel said he could not see any impropriety or violation of law that Madrigal may have committed for meeting with NDF chief political consultant and founding CPP chairman Jose Ma. Sison and NDF chairman Luis Jalandoni in Utrecht, Netherlands upon the invitation of the latter.

He said the threat of Palace and justice officials to file sedition charges against Madrigal smacks of the administrations penchant for witch-hunting its political foes in their obsession to still criticisms.

The threat to sanction Sen. Jamby Madrigal for her conversations with CPP leaders in The Netherlands cannot prosper criminally, administratively or ethically, Pimentel said.

Sen. Madrigal, as far as I know, did not conspire or confabulate with any communist party leader to topple the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo administration.

Pimentel said that Madrigal should be commended instead for going out of her way to look for a way to restart the long-suspended peace talks and contribute to the efforts to look for settlement of the armed conflict.

On the contrary, Sen. Madrigal apparently discussed with the CPP leadership ways of resolving their decades-old demand as a condition for terminating their revolution against the government. That is not a crime. It is, in fact, a noble act to lay down the foundations for freedom, justice and peace in the land.

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