“The military’s conscience is clear when it conducted the intelligence operation... we feel we did not violate anything so there is nothing to apologize (for),” said Armed Forces Southern Luzon Command chief Lt. Gen. Roland Detabali, who oversees the troops that arrested the suspects.

Army spokesman Col. Antonio Parlade Jr. echoed the same sentiment and insisted that the suspects were members of the New People’s Army (NPA) and not health workers.

“We will not apologize. We did our job. We did it well. Our stand remains... It is for us later on to prove that these people are NPAs. What we released were NPA medics, not health workers,” Parlade said.

Detabali said the troops acted based on intelligence reports obtained and that the arrest was a product of thorough surveillance operations. He also belied claims that the suspects were tortured and molested.

He said they will not recall the awards given to the officers who led the arrest of the suspected rebels.

“What they (officers) did was highly commendable. Our job is only up to the arrest (of the suspects). Other branches of the government will take charge of the prosecution,” he said. “If the executive and the judiciary think that they should be released then we will follow the political leadership.”

Col. Aurelio Baladad, commander of the 202nd Infantry Brigade and Lt. Col. Jaime Abawag, commander of the 16th Infantry Battalion, who led the Morong raid, were given bronze cross medals.

Detabali said the dropping of charges against the suspected rebels would have “very little” effect on their counter-insurgency drive.

“We have neutralized the group. We got the information that we needed,” he said.

Parlade, however, admitted that the move to withdraw the cases against the suspected rebels will have an impact on the morale of troops.

“We have to explain to our people that we have to follow the chain of command. Whatever the desires of our commander-in-chief, we have to follow.”

JDV: Free all political detainees

Meanwhile, the Aquino administration said it is open to the proposal of former Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. to free all other political prisoners in the country, to show good faith and prove that Philippines is still the world’s role model for democracy.

“Let’s just say that the administration is open to the idea like what former Speaker JDV is advocating,” Secretary Herminio Coloma told government-run radio station dzRB.

Such proposals, however, need to be threshed out among all the government agencies concerned, like the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Department of National Defense (DND), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and even the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), according to Coloma.

“De Venecia’s proposal still needs to be assessed and examined further. We will give further review and study it in accordance with the continuing commitment and promotion of human rights that the President wants,” he added.

De Venecia had urged the Aquino administration to offer amnesty to members of the communist NPA “to attain peace and unify the country.”

“President Noynoy should do what his mother President Cory did – offer amnesty to communist rebels,” he told a news conference over the weekend. “Such a gesture will complement his decision to revive the stalled peace talks with the CPP-NPA.”

He said the most prominent beneficiary of the late President Cory Aquino’s amnesty grant was Satur Ocampo, former leader and spokesman of the underground movement who later became a representative of the party-list group Bayan Muna.

“If we are offering amnesty to rebels soldiers, why not to communist rebels?” he asked.

He said he believes that many NPA members in the provinces would take advantage of such an offer “since they would rather opt for peace instead of fighting the government” and this could end the longest-running communist insurgency in Asia.

Joker lauds PNoy’s magnanimity

At the Senate, maverick Sen. Joker Arroyo said President Aquino’s decision to release the detainees was a fitting gesture this holiday season.

He said it must have been a hard balancing act for the President to weigh his decision, which came after he signed the amnesty proclamation for the Magdalo soldiers who engaged in coup attempts in the past administration.

Speaking over radio dzBB, Arroyo noted how past presidents from ex-President Ferdinand Marcos to Presidents Corazon Aquino and Fidel Ramos pardoned both the military activists and leftists.

“Whoever is the president, he will always have the problem about balancing, satisfying conflicting interests. So this one, I think that this is a very good call on the part of the President,” he said.

Arroyo, who has been critical of the new administration and has been advocating for the release of the 43 health workers, was all praises for President Aquino’s actions.

“I think it equalizes things,” he added, saying that the AFP leadership should also be recognized for not making it hard for the President to weigh things.

However, he said nobody can prevent the Morong 43 from pursuing legal actions against their captors. But he allayed fears of the members of the Armed Forces who may be implicated in the case, noting that they have the full backing of the government, especially the Executive department.

Alexis Romero, Philippine Star