Land for peace
You cannot win a fight for justice or for a better life in our country if you go to revolution. It won’t work WHAT COULD END INSURGENCY?
President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday night tried to extinguish the fire that continues to attract grievance rebels to the local Maoist New People’s Army (NPA) by vowing to give away all available lands to farmers through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).
The President also promised to “take away the initiative” of land distribution from the local fronts of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), a move which he said would diminish Maoist influence in the provinces.
Mr. Duterte made the statement during the Certificates of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) distribution that highlighted the 31st anniversary of the CARP at the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) multi-purpose gymnasium in Quezon City.
“I assure you that this administration will endeavor to pursue the full implementation of CARP, because it is empowering the farmers,” the President said. “It is only through empowering the farmers that we can achieve the sustained growth of our rural economies. This would lead to inclusive progress for our nation.”
“But I do not understand, that you want reforms immediately,” the President directed his narrative to the CPP-New People’s Army. “What you want is, with the flip of a finger, everything is given to you. And you do armed struggle.”
The Chief Executive was referring to the protracted war being waged by the Maoist party and its armed wing against the government since 1969, a year after then university professor Jose Maria Sison broke away from the Soviet-backed Partido Komunista ng Philippine, which was founded by print worker Crisanto Evangelista and lawyer Pedro Abad Santos in 1930.
“Revolution is no longer in vogue,” the President told his audience. “You cannot win a fight for justice or for a better life in our country if you go to revolution. It won’t work. I don’t think we can afford to wage a war for another 53 years.”
Expect radical shift
Mr. Duterte, however, gave a ray of hope to disgruntled Filipinos who have not embraced the communist ideals fully. According to military sources, many of the captured NPA fighters were not indoctrinated communists. Most of them were also victims of social injustices with grievances against the government or their landlords.
“In the coming days, there will be very, very radical change in the behavior of government,” he said.
“I’m serving notice to everybody that in the coming months, it will be not really bloody, but there will be a little trouble. We have to finish it,” he added, referring to the communist insurgency that is still prevalent in the countryside.
The President gave a hint that the “radical change” would deal with land reform. He did not specify the actions he would initiate, though.
“I’m telling the military — Can we end it now?’ We cannot afford to pass it on to the next generation. They may not be able to take it. It has to be now,” the President said.
“We have to finish everything, including drugs. And these will make us a magnet for all criticisms that are waiting for us — waiting for us to do wrong,” he added.
The President used the occasion at the DAR to transfer land titles to farmer beneficiaries.
He also criticized the Cojuangco and Aquino families, from which two presidents rose in the persons of Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino and her son Benigno Simeon Aquino III, for not staying true to the spirit of the CARP by exempting their family-owned Hacienda Luisita when all farmlands were placed under land reform in the 1980s.
Achievable goal
The President also mentioned the spate of killings in Negros Oriental as a tale of the communist insurgency that is continuously being fed with more grievance fighters who are drawn into the promises of alternative land distribution by the CPP-NPA.
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), meanwhile, said it is up to the challenge made by its Commander in Chief President Duterte.
Sought for comment about the President’s statement, AFP Deputy Chief of Staff for Civil Military Operations (J7) Maj. Gen. Antonio Parlade Jr. described the Presidential directive as “achievable.”
“Yes, it’s doable. We have been saying that the AFP can lick the armed component, the NPA, within the time frame set by the President,” Parlade told the Daily Tribune.
He stressed that President Duterte’s Executive Order 70 which activated the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict, has been successful in its efforts to address insurgency through a whole-of-nation-approach.