In a statement he issued from The Netherlands, Sison said the peace talks between the two groups should not be prejudiced by the ''premature raising of questions'' on the part of the government such as issues on political authority and permanent ceasefire.

He said both sides must strictly follow the agenda for negotiations which they earlier approved.

Sison was reacting to the statement of Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora that the figures in the compensation package for possible indemnification of alleged 10,000 human rights victims during martial law were proposed solely by the NDF.

Zamora said the government has not yet accepted this proposal.

Reports said that under the NDF proposal, each of the victims would get from P500,000 to P3.5 million from all recovered assets of the Marcoses as indemnification.

Sison would reportedly get P3.5 million.

This prompted Robert Swift, lead counsel of the 10,000 human rights victims during martial law, to seek separate negotiations with President Estrada on the $570-million Marcos money being in escrow at the Philippine National Bank.

Sison described as way off the mark the statement of former Ambassador Howard Dee, chair of the government panel (GRP), that the NDF panel wanted the government to lay aside its own constitutional framework, specifically on the indemnification issue.

On the contrary, he said, the NDF recognized that the GRP has its own constitutional framework to be followed in the same way that NDF has also its on own.

Thus, it would be a violation of The Hague Joint Declaration for Dee to demand that the NDF panel subordinate itself to the GRP framework, Sison said.

Sison, who is also chief politicial consultant of the NDF panel, said President Estrada, Zamora and former Ambassador Howard Dee should refrain from issuing those kind of statements as these could negate the goodwill both sides had already established in their previous talks.

He said statements on indemnification belong to the third and fourth headings of the substantive agenda that must not be discussed this early.

Both panels were still in the second heading, which was on social and economic reforms.

''But so be it if the GRP wants to suspend or collapse the negotiations. The NDF panel cannot resume the negotiations without the GRP. It takes two parties to negotiate.

The NDF panel cannot do anything but to tell the people that the GRP is responsible for putting up the necessary obstacles,'' Sison said.

He said it was ''pure prevarication'' for anyone in the GRP to claim that that NDF panel wants it to lay aside its own constitution, Sison stressed.

By Cynthia D. Balana