‘What to do to leaders?’

The Eastern Mindanao Command ( Eastmincom) will wait for guidance from the higher headquarters on dealing with the consultants of the National Democratic Front ( NDF) who were temporarily released from detention to take part in the peace negotiations.

“We are just waiting for guidance from the higher headquarters,” Eastmincom commander Lt. Gen. Benjamin Madrigal said when asked by reporters on the arrest of the consultants during the Hermes Club at Waterfront Hotel.

Madrigal said the military is also waiting for the formal proclamation of the CPP-NPANDF as a terrorist organization, although he added that the activities of the NPA rebels such as extortion, burning of equipment and destroying agricultural plantations are tantamount to “terroristic activities.”

He noted that the military is just an instrument of national power and matters on peace negotiations are decided by the political leaders.

The Philippine National Police also has the primary responsibility to arrest criminal elements, the military official added.In an interview with Radyo Pilipinas in Davao, the government’s peace panel chairman, Secretary Silvestre Bello III, said NDF consultants who were granted provisional liberty may voluntarily submit themselves to the authorities. /