Peace talks unlikely but hopes must remain

President Duterte was speaking at the 122nd anniversary of the Philippine Army last March 21, 2019, when he declared: “I am officially announcing the permanent termination of our talks between the government panel and the Communist Party of the Philippines…. I am no longer entertaining any intervention or persuasions in this democratic state of the Republic of the Philippines.”

Peace with the CPP and the New People’s Amy (NPA) and National Democratic Front (NDF) had been among the foremost goals announced by the President at the start of his term in 2016, raising hopes all around that the 48-year-old `Communist rebellion in the Philippines would finally come to an end.

In those first months of the administration, talks were held, not just with the NPA leaders in the field but also with the CPP leaders seeking social and economic reforms in government. At one point, the government suspended the talks as NPA units continued to carry out raids in the field in the absence of any truce. CPP Chairman Jose Ma. Sison, from his haven in the Netherlands, said the field commanders of the NPA were acting in response to field developments. There was evidently no single authority on the part of the CPP-NPA-NDF in the talks with the government.

But the talks continued, raising hopes all around, until President Duterte’s announcement last March 21 of the “pemanent termination” of the talks. The President evidently had had his fill of the claims and demands of the CPPNPA-NDF.

It was, therefore, rather unexpected when President Duterte, according to presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo last Sunday, asked CCP Chairman Sison anew to come to Manila for talks, assuring he won’t be arrested. The President had earlier sent Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello to talk to Sison for a possible revival of the talks.

Sison has been quick to reject the proposal for new talks in the Philippines as “totally unacceptable.” He issued a statement that such talks would place the negotiators “in the pocket of the Duterte regime and under the control of the blood-thirsty military and police who engage in mass murders and other heinous crimes with impunity.”

With words like these, we do not expect anything to come out of the new Duterte offer. There is evidently no desire or intention of Sison and the other leftist leaders to come to the Philippines, no trust in the President and the military, and no expectation of any agreement. There is no indication that there has been any change in the situation to warrant any new peace hopes.

But these hopes must remain. It will probably take some time, perhaps not in this administration, but after half a century of fighting, we must keep up our hopes that some day, we will achieve that goal of peace and greater progress in our country and with all due respect for human rights in a regime of justice.