Support the peace talks
VETERAN human rights lawyer Rachel Pastores has this reaction about President Duterte’s lifting of his unilateral ceasefire with the communist rebels, and I agree:
“Pressuring the New People’s Army to counter with its own ceasefire, when no military pull-out or substantial political change was effected, was amiss. No one can easily surrender a war of 50 years in five days. It would be wise next for the Duterte administration to regroup and focus on the releases of peace consultants and political prisoners, as pledged in the Oslo Joint Statement of June, 2016. And, it will be wiser and prudent all the more to return to the table in August, reactivating all official mechanisms, to keep on talking and planning for a just and lasting peace.”
Pastores is no stranger to the peace process. The Public Interest Law Center, where she serves as managing counsel, has long been involved in providing legal services to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines’ negotiating panel, since the time of Romeo T. Capulong – a titan of the human rights and public interest lawyering – who served as the rebel negotiators’ general counsel.
The peace process has always been rocky and challenging for both parties. But it doesn’t mean we should no longer pursue it.
The situation now presents us with both opportunities and threats, and it is up to the Duterte administration, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, their supporters, and advocates of the peace process how to navigate through it. The challenge is to thwart all those who oppose the peace process – the rightists and anticommunists, the military’s corrupt contractors who profit from war, the domestic and foreign interests disinterested in reforms, and the few who wish to deprive us of the means to resolve the roots of the armed conflict.
The Communist Party of the Philippines, which leads the NPA and the NDFP, is not waging a capricious and mindless war, mind you. This party has always been vocal and straightforward with its objectives, views and perspectives – so much so that not a few have called it the only real political party in the country. It believes that armed revolution is the only way to overthrow Big Business, Big Landlords and Big Foreign Interests – the criminal triad that it views as stumbling blocks to progress in the country. Its diagnosis of the national crisis is clear: The Philippines is rich but remains poor because of imperialism, bureaucrat capitalism and feudalism. It has a complete program for politics, economics, culture and arts, foreign policy, and other areas of national life. It is implementing parts of this program in its territories. And unlike other parties, it criticizes itself, owns up to its mistakes, and apologizes to the nation.
My point is, this is not a party that will meekly bow down to Duterte, as some asinine supporters seriously expect. They cannot be serious, right? This is a party that withstood and prevailed over counter-insurgency operations from the fascist Marcos dictatorship until BS Aquino’s rule of t/error. Its position on the peace talks is the same as in the armed revolution it is waging: Everything should be about resolving the roots of the armed conflict.
There are those who think that Duterte should use the talks merely to either deceive or bully the CPP into just giving up. This kind of thinking was precisely what BS Aquino wrongly thought from 2010-2016 when the peace process barely moved an inch. It was not effective, and it brought neither peace nor reforms. Only the Big Landlords, Big Businesses, and Big Foreign Interests were happy during that period – and please don’t wonder why.
We should all support the peace process because we would benefit if past and future agreements are implemented and enforced. For example, the first of four substantive agreements had already been signed by the government and the NDFP: the landmark Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. It provides for a mechanism for citizens to raise issues and submit complaints on human rights issues – such as extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, torture and other acts of police brutality. It would also oblige the Duterte administration to release all political prisoners wrongly charged with common crimes.
The next substantive agreement – which the Aug. 20 talks in Oslo are expected to tackle – would be about social and economic reforms. Read the NDFP’s proposed draft of the changemaking agreement and you would see what could be in store for the nation if both the government and the NDFP could agree, and implement such reforms.
After socio-econonomic reforms, the parties would talk and hammer out an agreement on political and economic reforms. Then finally, the fourth and last agreement would be on cessation of hostilities and disposition of forces.
To be honest, the alternatives to this sequence of the peace talks agenda are way simpler: The CPP would just have to surrender and give up, have the top leaders appointed to government positions, disband the NPA, and throw away nearly five decades of waging its armed revolution. Or that the Armed Forces of the Philippines would finally achieve the oft-repeated but perpetually-failed victory against the NPA. These are business models, wet dreams and sex fantasies of the few who profit from war.
Let’s persevere in the difficult peace process and together achieve for the nation what the legendary Senator Jose W. Diokno once famously described as the hallmarks of peace: “jobs and justice, food and freedom.”