AFP ready to issue safe conduct passes to Reds

ANGELES CITY — The spokesman of the Armed Forces Northern Luzon Command (Nolcom) said the military is willing to grant safe conduct passes to members of the New People’s Army (NPA) should the rebels decide to surrender two military men whom they abducted in Floridablanca and Guagua.

Col. Preme Monta told The STAR that Air Force Maj. Neptune Eliquin, who was abducted in Floridablanca last July 2, and Marine Sgt. Marlon Oronan, who was seized from his home in Guagua last Nov. 18, are still alive.

"The best we can offer are safe conduct passes for the rebels in the course of their turning over their victims," Monta said.

He reiterated, though, the military’s policy of not negotiating with the NPA for the release of Eliquin and Oronan, describing their abductions as "terroristic acts."

Monta said the NPA has not yet made any demands for the release of Oronan.

Oronan, assigned to the 6th Marine Battalion based in Lanao del Norte, was on leave to be with his wife and two children for one month in Barangay Pulung Masle in Guagua when six rebels snatched and dragged him into an unlicensed van.

Monta said the issuance of the safe conduct passes would be for the protection not only of the hostages, but also of the soldiers and the rebels who will be involved in the turnover.

"In the case of Eliquin, the latest we got was the statement of the National Democratic Front (NDF) demanding ceasefire from the military as a condition for his release," Monta said.

Last Oct. 24, the NDF issued a statement saying the NPA was holding Eliquin as a "prisoner of war (POW)," and assured his family that he was "being accorded humane treatment by the NPA custodial force assigned to him."

The statement was issued three days after Air Force spokesman Capt. Joselito Munar, in an interview with The STAR, appealed to Eliquin’s captors to release him to his family in time for Christmas.

The NDF demanded not only the cessation of military offensives in Central Luzon, but also the ouster of Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan, chief of the Army’s 7th Infantry Division, whom the NDF accused of widespread human rights violations.

After the military rejected its demands, the NDF issued another statement last Nov. 5 saying that "rescue operations, as a means of freeing the prisoner of war," would only endanger the safety of Eliquin.

"This has been shown by experience in the botched rescue of PNP Inspector Abelardo Martin, who was killed by his rescuers’ own bullets, when the (Armed Forces) ventured to rescue him from captivity in March 2001 in a village of Nakar, Quezon," the NDF said.