WHAT ARE THE PROSPECTS FOR PEACE WITH THE NDF?
Joma Sison lacks the character to provide the sincerity and wisdom to lead the peace negotiations with the government.
members. Technology only facilitates communication, but it cannot provide the intrinsic value required to demand loyalty from one’s troops. Joma breathes rarefied air and lives in an environment that is extraneous from the realities on the ground where his men operate. He leads a frivolous life supported by foreign benefactors and the contributions from the local movement that are sourced illegally through kidnapping, revolutionary taxes, extortion and other criminal acts. This is the worst form of leadership, when you let your men sacrifice life and limb to feed your whims and caprices, and even worse, when you hide behind the cloak of foreign hospitality and goodwill.
What are the by-products of this type of leadership? It provides the vague interpretation that encourages your men to work for their selfish personal agenda when you lose control, power, and influence. In short, you are inutile. His long absence from the Philippines already makes him an irrelevant representative of the movement. Why are we then negotiating with him in the first place?
What are the implications if a breakdown of leadership occurs? There is an absence of a shared purpose. A diverse and incongruent purpose creates political infighting, power struggle, parochial politics, and organizational inefficiency. Under Joma’s leadership, the movement has become divided, with actions leading to divisiveness. It undertook purges of alleged disloyal party members which split into two factions, the rejectionist and the reaffirmist. The lack of command and control has let loose the appetite of its members to commit criminal acts, like kidnapping, destruction of government properties and installations, collection of revolutionary tax, security protection of political candidates, and the dissemination of propaganda that projects bad image of the country in the international community. There is a clash of leadership prerogative since Joma cannot even compel his people to comply with the government agreement on cease-fire.
When you lose control over your people, you provide a wide latitude of options to your men which they will interpret to their own advantage. It allows them the flexibility to craft their own strategy, to generate resources for the movement through insidious and unscrupulous methods, and to satisfy the greed for personal ambitions. What form of ideology or advocacy does these methods subscribe to?
Leadership begins with values; values beget character that is essential in sustaining the lifeblood of an organization. The advocacy that permeates in the organization defines its quality and standard.
Let us look at what values Joma represents.
• When you depend and take
advantage of the coffers of other people to feed your physiological needs and ego in order to advance your political objectives, you approximate the level of a parasite.
• When you advance your selfish ambition by just depending on the efforts and initiatives of your men, that is deceit. When you force people to work for you and take undue advantage of their ignorance, fear, and despair, you rule through deception and ill-will. • When you impose on your
men to commit violence, torture to both destroy lives and generate more party resources regardless of the means, malintention and cowardice are in your system. • When you destroy the future
of people and the future generation, you are an opportunist and a bottom-feeder.
In short and simple characterization, Joma lacks the character to provide the sincerity and wisdom to lead the negotiations.
The GRP is better off undertaking localized peace negotiations on a regional level with NDF leaders. This seems to have greater promise of success as these localized leaders have better control and the real support of their forces on the ground. They are familiar with the local conditions and sentiments of the people.
Regional level talks can provide the opportunity for better confidence- building measures. The problem with a country-wide coverage of the peace process is that each region has its own peculiar characteristics, degree of insurgent affectation, either infiltrated or influenced, hence, must be handled on a case- tocase basis.
The prospects for peace are bright, as both sides continue to persevere and stay on track. Leadership is key, and the NDF may need to take a good hard look at their internal realities if they sincerely want to achieve peace, finally.
The article reflects the personal opinion of the author and does not reflect the official stand of the Management Association of the Philippines or the M.A.P.