MANILA, Aug. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The Philippine government Wednesday suspended indefinitely the immunity for 97 top ranking leaders of the rebel group, the National Democratic Front (NDF), from being arrested and interrogated, in view of their abandonment of the peace negotiations.

    Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita told a press conference thatthe government peace panel would send the notice of suspension of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees to its counterparts in the Netherlands, which will take effect 30 days after the NDF receives it.

    According to the government, after the suspension takes effect,top ranking leaders of the NDF can be arrested by law enforcement agencies and the military.

    Meanwhile, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) also said that they will resume offensives against the NDF rebels as it anticipates further hostilities from them.

    Armed Forces spokesman Lt. Col. Bienvenido Pascual said that the AFP is augmenting forces in Samar Island by deploying US-trained counter terrorist forces.

    The NDF rebels, which have been waging a war against the government for over three decades, are considered as the major threat to the country's security.

    Spokesman Gregorio "Ka Roger" Rosal of the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the NDF, was reported to have said earlierthat the NDF would wait for the next administration before returning to the negotiating table.

    "What is the sense of continuing talks with a lame-duck regime that will be gone very soon? Peace negotiations with the Philippine government would have better chances of succeeding after the ouster of the Arroyo regime and the establishment of a new government that would be more serious and sincere in pursuing the peace process," he said in a statement.

    He said that the NDF withdrew from the talks because the government unilaterally vetoed passages in what would have been a joint communique issued this month announcing the resumption of formal talks.

    On the other hand, chief government negotiator Nieves Confesor said that the NDF had unilaterally withdrawn from the negotiationsbecause the rebels and its founder Jose Maria Sison, who is in exile in the Netherlands, had not been removed from terrorist lists of the United States and the European Union. Enditem