A peek at some changes under a Duterte gov’t

“Change is coming!” was the ringing promise of the phenomenal electoral campaign of incoming President Rodrigo R. Duterte.

After the initial meeting with his designated Cabinet members early this week, Duterte and certain appointees have given us a peek into some probable changes in policies and programs, not only of his immediate predecessor but of other previous presidents.

Most notable, from Duterte’s statements to the media, is his emphasis on resolving outstanding issues/problems – involving foreign affairs and the protracted internal armed conflict with the Left revolutionary movement – by engaging in bilateral negotiations and spurning resort to war.

He has announced his plan to resume the peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front, which will entail a truce or mutual ceasefire accord and the release of all political prisoners. His peace adviser, Jesus Dureza, and chief negotiator, DOJ secretary-designate Silvestre Bello III, will hold preliminary talks with their NDFP counterparts in Oslo in the latter half of this month.

Specific to the maritime claims dispute with China in the South China Sea – over which he said, “I am not ready to go to war. It will just result in a massacre” – Duterte further emphasized a definitive shift away from the Aquino government’s overarching dependence on United States military support.

“We will be chartering a course of our own,” Duterte declared. “It will not be dependent on America, and it will be a line not intended to please anybody but the Filipino interest.” Concise and crisp.

To what extent Duterte will pursue this independent line is highly interesting. For instance, will he review the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and halt its implementation – allowing US military forces access to Philippine bases and other locations they may choose, establish facilities therein, store and take out war materiel freely for their exclusive use? Or will he altogether rescind the bilateral accord (on the ground that it denigrates our national sovereignty), since it is merely an executive agreement and not a treaty requiring Senate concurrence, as ruled by the Supreme Court?

Duterte has thus far stated the following stands: a) he awaits the decision of the UN Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague (expected to be issued around July) on the Philippine petition questioning the validity of China’s claim over almost the entire South China sea; based on the ruling, with the advice of his Cabinet, he will pursue bilateral talks with China; b) he has expressed support for multilateral talks among the various claimants (Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam) with China that may include the US, Japan, and Australia; and c) he has urged China to respect the Philippines’ 370-kilometer (200 nautical miles) exclusive economic zones granted under the UNCLOS, which include the Panatag or Scarborough shoals.

From two of his designated Cabinet secretaries, we have gathered the following initiatives that indicate some changes forthcoming:

• Rafael Mariano, incoming Department of Agrarian Reform secretary, has announced he will review his predecessor’s implementation of what he calls a “sham” agrarian reform program in Hacienda Luisita, and vows that under his helm “no farmer will be displaced [from the land he tills].”

“We will conduct a no holds barred review and reversal of the DAR’s antifarmer decisions,” he said, “a moratorium on land use conversion, and a stop to the cancellation of farmers’ land ownership certificates, among others.”

On Hacienda Luisita, owned by the Jose Cojuangco clan to which P-Noy belongs, Mariano said he will review the “tambiolo”raffle through which the DAR is carrying out the 2012 Supreme Court order to distribute among 6,296 farmworker- beneficiaries 4,915 hectares of the 6,453-hectare estate. Many beneficiaries have rejected the raffle as unfair. He will also review the farmers’ pending petition seeking the revocation of the land-use conversion authorization issued by the DAR to the Cojuangcos.

Mariano’s initiatives are expected to be challenged by the Cojuangcos, who for nearly 50 years have persistently held on to the estate when – under the terms of its government-backed purchase from Tabacalera in 1957 – it was supposed to have been handed over to the farmers in 1967.

This validates the reservation expressed by the PAN Asia-Pacific peasant alliance, while it hails Mariano’s appointment as affirmation that “through unwavering struggle, even the powers that be are forced to recognize the need to put peasant activists in government to push for meaningful policy reforms that will truly benefit the oppressed and exploited farmers.” The PANAP says:

“We also acknowledge that even with (Mariano) at the helm of the DAR, profarmer reforms will not automatically happen as long as the overall agrarian and agricultural development program remains biased towards landlords and big corporations.”

• Soon after Duterte announced her designation as DSWD secretary, Judy Taguiwalo visited the 500 lumad (indigenous people) evacuees at the United Church of Christ in the Philippines Haran Center in Davao City. She offered to personally relay to Duterte their demand and urge him to take positive action. Their demand: totally pull out the AFP troops and their paramilitary units from lumad communities and allow them to return and pursue their normal activities.

The demand is not unknown to Duterte. A couple of years back, as regional peace and order council chair, he got the AFP field commander to agree in writing to pull out his troops from the lumad communities in Talaingod, Davao del Norte so that the residents who had sought refuge in Davao City could return home safely. But that agreement didn’t hold for long. The troops and their paramilitary units returned and occupied the villages, including the schools, and the lumad families trekked back to Davao City.

As AFP commander-in-chief soon, Duterte can end the plight of the lumads, not only in Talaingod but elsewhere in Mindanao. He can do the same for other civilians in other areas of the country with similar conditions. He can review and junk the failed counterinsurgency plan, Oplan Bayanihan, that has caused so many killings, so much injustice and misery among the people.