BACK CHANNEL

Nonetheless, even with the exchanges of fire on the ground and verbal denunciations from both sides, backchannel talks actually continued in late Oct. to Nov.

Mr. Dureza hinted on this when he announced the cancellation of the negotiations on Nov. 22, a day before the actual signing of PN 360.

“This is an unfortunate development in our work for peace. Never before have we all reached this far in our negotiations with them,” he said.

NDFP’s Julieta de Lima, chairperson of the Reciprocal Working Committees on Social and Economic Reforms (RWCs- SER), confirmed this in a Nov. 23 statement, saying “unprecedented advances have already been achieved in forging agreements on urgently needed socio- economic reforms to alleviate mass poverty and resolve the roots of the armed conflict.”

Ms. De Lima said that four days earlier, the bilateral teams of the NDFP and the government’s RWCs- SER “initialed draft documents reflecting substantial agreements on agrarian reform and rural development, and on national industrialization and economic development. These were the result of a series of bilateral technical meetings” on Oct. 26-27, Nov. 9-11, and Nov. 16-17.

But Mr. Dureza pointed out that “Recent tragic and violent incidents all over the country committed by the communist rebels left the President with no other choice but to arrive at this decision.”

On the other hand, NDFP consultant Randy Felix P. Malayao, in a telephone interview on Nov. 12, asserted that the talks should have “no preconditions.”

“There must be a respect for past agreements and commitments, e.g. the release of political prisoners, the general amnesty for political prisoners. I think that is a vital requirement… and ano ba ang mahalaga sa talks ‘di ba (what is important in the talks)?… reforms that resolve the root causes of the armed conflict,” Mr. Malayao said, citing socioeconomic, political, and constitutional reforms.

“After which, we shall have cessation of hostilities… Sequential kasi ang agenda. Hindi pwedeng magkaroon muna ng ( We cannot have a) ceasefire before the economic reform,” he added.

REVOLUTIONARY TAXES

For the administration, however, what could possibly change the President’s stance, according to Mr. Dureza, is if a “desired enabling environment” for peace is laid out, which means not just a halt to the NPA attacks against the military and police, but also “stopping all their extortion activities on the ground, among others.”

The banana industry in Mindanao, which accounts for the