I seriously doubt that the political negotiations between the Duterte administration and the communist-led National Democratic Front (NDF) will move forward and reach a comprehensive peace agreement without a joint cease-fire.
The fourth round of the peace negotiations were held last week in the Netherlands with neither side declaring a unilateral cease-fire.
The NDF had said it would declare a unilateral cease-fire a day before the resumption of the fourth round of the current peace talks but did not do so.
The Armed Forces, for its part, also did not declare a unilateral cease-fire.
In short, while the negotiators on both sides wear broad smiles as they pose for photo opportunities at the start and end of each session, their forces on the ground are grim-faced and ready, willing to kill each other with every weapon in their respective arsenals.
This situation does not inspire confidence at all that the talks will make significant progress.
The military now tries to go on the offensive in areas where the New People’s Army (NPA) operates and to decimate the ranks of the rebels with their superior number and weapons.
The NPA will also engage the military in the various areas where they operate, particularly in parts of Mindanao where they have established a foothold.
Full-scale war will certainly lead to casualties on both sides. The military will not hesitate to arrest high-value targets, such as leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the NPA. The NPA will still try to capture soldiers and policemen as bargaining chips in the negotiations and as a propaganda tool to show that they are a force to reckon with.
Previous peace talks starting in the post-Edsa era did not go far enough, aside from agreements on security of negotiators and on international human-rights agreements.
The focus of the talks—the substantive matters involving social and economic reforms, as well as political and constitutional reforms—will take time to thresh out, even as the two sides already have working drafts.
Both panels appeared optimistic when they faced the media at the start of the fourth round of talks, but acknowledged that the negotiations would be tough even as the Norwegian government still stands as third-party facilitator.
Just how tough the political negotiations will be can be discerned from President Duterte’s conditions for the government to declare a joint cease-fire.
First, there should be a clear parameters or terms of reference for the cease-fire. Second, the government will not recognize any territorial claims by the rebels. Third, the rebels should stop the collection of revolutionary taxes and refrain from criminal acts, such as extortion and arson. And, fourth, the rebels should release all their captives.
The NPA is not expected to stop the collection of revolutionary taxes as this is the source of funds to maintain their standing army and mass organizations.
And if the military will not budge from its all-out war stance, there isn’t likely to be a joint cease-fire anytime soon.
GRP chief negotiator and Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III has said he expects a difficult phase in the peace talks with the NDF “given the diversity of the positions taken by the parties on the issues at hand”.
The fourth round of talks succeeded in forging an agreement on the NDF demand that, as part of genuine agrarian reform, farmers should be given land for free. How that would be implemented is still up in the air. There are issues that should be resolved, such as just compensation for landowners, that is guaranteed by the Constitution. The NDF wants big tracts of land such as Hacienda Luisita to be expropriated and given free to tenant farmers who have worked there for decades, but it’s not going to be easy to do that without opposition from the Cojuangco-Aquino family.
We do not expect the current peace talks to produce dramatic results with armed hostilities taking place and the armed components of the two sides aiming for the jugular and trying to decimate the other with hammer and tongs. But if by some miracle they make progress and decide to finally stop fighting and forge a comprehensive agreement, then we will gladly welcome this after 50 long years of violence and bloodshed.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.