Jose Maria Sison, chief political consultant of the communist-led National Democratic Front (NDF), said in a statement that acceptance by the guerrillas of Manila's position would mean the ''surrender'' of the rebels.

He said that ''by the single stroke of preconditioning the resumption of the... peace negotiations with the surrender of the NDFP (NDF-Philippines), the Estrada regime has practically killed the peace negotiations.''

President Joseph Ejercito Estrada suspended the talks set to resume earlier this month in The Netherlands after the rebels demanded thatthey implement a human rights agreement in accordance with their own rules.

The Estrada administration said allowing the rebels to do so would put them on equal footing with the government.

Sison also accused Estrada of reneging on a commitment to compensate victims of human rights abuses under late dictator Ferdinand Marcos as part of the peace process to end the communist insurgency.

Compensation for rights victims was outlined in the agreement on the respect for human rights and international humanitarian law approved by Estrada earlier this year.

The funds would be taken from money recovered from the Marcos estate.

However, the 10,000 rights victims claiming a portion of Marcos's money have split into two factions, one of them identified with Sison and the other allied with more moderate human rights lawyers.

Sison claims that the government should deal with his group in the disbursement of payments to human rights victims and assailed Estrada for meeting with Robert Swift, the American lawyer of the other claimants' faction.

The rebel leader said Swift would be ''useful to Estrada in turning away from'' his commitment to compensate the rights victims as provided for in the human rights accord.

The human rights pact was the first of four agreements the government and the rebels hoped to sign as part of an overall peace treaty.

AFP