FAREWELL. Labor Secretary and former government peace panel chair Silvestre Bello III (left) shakes hands with NDF chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili (right) at the opening ceremony of the resumption of the GPH-NDF peace talks in Oslo, Norway in August 2016. Bello mourned the passing of Agcaoili whom he described as a "man of honor and conviction". (Photo courtesy of OPAPP)
MANILA – Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III on Friday mourned the death of Fidel Agcaoili, chief negotiator of the National Democratic Front (NDF).
“We join all peace-loving Filipinos in grieving the passing of a revolutionary whose passion for peace is as ardent as his love for structural change on the land of his birth,” he said in a statement.
Bello, former chair of the government's peace panel, also described Agcaoili as a “man of honor and conviction”.
“Ka Fidel V. Agcaoili, my counterpart in the peace table in our efforts to try to end the decades-long armed conflict with the CPP-NPA-NDF, was a man of honor and conviction. He was an instrument in making the mostly arduous tasks of talking peace smoother and a bit easier,” he added.
Bello expressed sadness that Agcaoili “will no longer savor the lasting peace with justice that he was pursuing with passion".
“Goodbye to a friend, a revolutionary, and a peace warrior,” he said.
Agcaoili, 75, passed away on Thursday in Utrecht, The Netherlands, where he was exiled. He succumbed to pulmonary arterial rupture. (PNA)
