Clash of ‘peace’

TBy HE high theory is the CPPNPA-NDF is tired of war and ready to talk peace with government to end several decades of insurgency. The Shakesperean tragedy, however, is captured in the pasted posters (photo headline, Manila Bulletin) in Davao City: “CPP-NPA-NDF are terrorist, extortionist, and anti-peace.” President Rodrigo Duterte has called the communist group “terrorists” and released the AFP for “all-out war.”

Malacañang had given the group the proverbial “benefit of the doubt” when President Duterte launched the peace talks. He allowed, as “peace offering,” the release of incarcerated NDF consultants. He appointed to the cabinet Communist Party members – a high-water mark for these partisans. The push of the CPP leadership was “coalition government.” DU30 gave peace its best hope, but as the President has publicly cited, friendship ends when the fate of the nation is involved.

Part of the problem is a clash of “peace.” The CPP ideology asserts peace comes only after armed revolution. A hardline Maoist thought: “We are advocates of the abolition of war, we do not want war, but war can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun, it is necessary to take up the gun.” The clash of peace is about sincerity vs. the ideology of revolution. Communists by nature are “advocates of the omnipotence of revolutionary war…to create a democratic republic” (Mao Zedong).

Here lies the great divide. The conflict is over the concepts of “war and revolution as the extension of politics” to attain “peace” and democratic centralism. The Republic wants peace, to halt the carnage, unite the nation, and achieve progress. The CPP-NPA prefers war, while its NDF underling with leftist supporters, pushes for peace talks. Part of the calculated chaos of talk-talk then war, “War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions…our goal is to make the enemy passive.” An ideological template for subterfuge – gaining protracted advantage, for example, abolition of RA 1700, the Anti-Subversion Law; Cory Aquino releasing Sison after Marcos jailed him, etc. It is a dogged pursuit of a non-negotiable end-state -- a Communist regime.

President Ramon Magsaysay warned: “Between our way of life and communism, there can be no peace, no paralyzing coexistence, no gray neutralism. There can only be conflict, total and without reconciliation…I shall use all the forces at my command to the end that. The sovereign authority of this government shall be respected and maintained. There can be no compromise with disloyalty.”

If the CPP-NPA is a terrorist group, there must be a chief terrorist. Government can pursue this track internationally.

PERSONAL: Congratulations to PN Reservist Commodore Gloria Jumamil Mercado for her well-deserved promotion. Kudos to her many out-reach/charitable programs.