BONG WENCESLAO:
The President is bent on ending the peace talks, a move he himself pushed when he took office, says Wenceslao. The first obvious sign was when presidential adviser for peace process Jesus Dureza curtailed back-channel talks with the National Democratic Front (NDF). This was reinforced when Solicitor General Jose Calida moved to order the arrest of the released NDF consultants. The President, Wenceslao observes, has been harsh in his recent speeches since the clash between rebels and government forces.
President Rodrigo Duterte seems bent now to end the peace talks that he himself initiated immediately after he assumed his post middle of last year. This can be gleaned when Jesus Dureza, the presidential adviser on the peace process, halted government’s back channel talks with the National Democratic Front (NDF). Solicitor General Jose Calida followed that up by working for the re-arrest of released NDF consultants.
The President has also been harsh in his recent speeches, especially after the clash between elements of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) and New People’s Army (NPA) rebels that injured six people. One thing that stood out for me was his warning to go after the communist rebels after the Maute group in Marawi City has been dealt with.
Another interesting point he raised was about Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison being seriously ill. Duterte and Sison are friends, which is partly the reason the President has been insistent on talking peace with the NDF. With a sick Sison, would there be another CPP leader that Duterte would be respectful of?
And would the President see the prospect of the revolutionary Left losing Sison, if ever, as a weakening of the rebellion? He seems to see this as, at the very least, a demoralizing prospect when he told the rebels that government would welcome them if they surrender, with members of the CPP’s armed wing, the NPA, promised induction into the government’s armed forces.
Still, I think it would be wrong to see the recent development as already etched in stone. The President had suspended the talks before and launched a verbal assault on the communist rebels but eventually calmed down and reopened the peace negotiations. So the recent one could be another of those off-and-on episodes.
As I have said before, I don’t have high hopes for the peace talks, although I am fully in support of it. While the President has exhibited the willingness to push boundaries, this is not the best period in the country’s history to institute societal changes, The pendulum has shifted to the right, which means that the push by the NDF for revolutionary and progressive changes would surely meet stiff resistance.
That’s why I think the peace negotiations will eventually be scuttled. I just did not think it would be in the earliest of stages, when the talks still revolve around the need for a bilateral ceasefire agreement. I thought the impasse would happen when the talks would already reach the substantive phase, when social and economic reforms are discussed.
And while the scuttling of the talks won’t be good for the pursuit of peace, I think it would also end the anomaly of the revolutionary Left having one foot in the government and another foot on the street parliament. This setup has contributed to the weakening of the effort to push the social pendulum back to, at the very least, the center. With the Left losing credibility, the protest movement has also been affected.
The scuttling of the talks would force the revolutionary Left to return to its roots, one that allowed it to survive and flourish under the Marcos dictatorship.