WE are glad President Duterte ordered the military to cease from conducting offensives against the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) during the Christmas period in observance of the traditional holiday cease-fire with the CPP-NPA.
The President announced the suspension of military operations (Somo) from December 24 to January 2, 2018. The government’s declaration of a unilateral cease-fire will allow not only the soldiers and the rebels but also the civilians in areas of conflict to peacefully celebrate the Christmas season. After all, Christmas is a time for peace.
After the declaration of the holiday truce on Tuesday, December 19, there was an encounter between the NPA and Army soldiers last Saturday morning in Baleno town in Masbate that led to the death of an unidentified rebel.
Before this incident, three encounters between NPA rebels and government forces were reported to have taken place in Baleno during the first two weeks of December.
We truly hope both sides would cease all hostilities in observance of Christmas, as a goodwill gesture. This can also be a good start for promoting the resumption of peace talks next year.
We know President Duterte already signed Proclamation 360, terminating peace talks with the NPA, but proclamations can be undone. It is not too late to follow up on the goodwill of his unilateral cease-fire declaration and work toward the resumption of formal peace negotiations by the first quarter of 2018.
Conflicts only make our people suffer. We have seen the extent of the shootings, the killings, the bombings, the civilian casualties (antiseptically called collateral damage) during conflicts between the government and rebel forces.
How can we not support a cease-fire or join calls for the resumption of peace talks? It does not even have to be a formal declaration. A more permanent cease-fire and/or the resumption of peace negotiations can be just an informal agreement between the government and the NPA to suspend all aggressive actions against each other for the time being.
It could be similar to the cease-fire agreement forged between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in 2005, when then Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon both simply declared a stop to all fighting.
Again, not only the combatants but also innocents and civilians are harmed in any kind of fighting. This is the immutable consequence of any armed conflict.
Whatever the good intentions of both sides are, no matter how just the NPA or the government thinks its cause is—the reality is that civilians have been hurt and killed in their skirmishes.
The reality is most actors in any war have historically shown little regard for civilian deaths, which is why Kofi Annan, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, once called on the world community to advance a “new, human-centered approach to conflict, which places the security needs of ordinary people above the interests of regimes or state powers.”
There have been dire consequences for the civilian population, even those who were not killed or injured in the conflicts between the NPA and the government. They suffered deep psychological trauma, dislocation, loss of home and property.
The destruction of civil infrastructure and resulting damage to the economy have effects that can last for generations and may even cause further deaths indirectly. We have seen this in war-torn Marawi. We have seen this in the Zamboanga siege in 2013.
Regard for the sanctity and dignity of life is an issue of national character. We Filipinos are said to be a peace-loving people.
Each death caused by conflicts between the government and the Reds, as well as those caused by the Muslim insurgencies, whether it is the death of a civilian or combatant, is a tragedy that must never be regarded as an acceptable cost of war.
We as a nation have a collective, moral and humanitarian duty to call for a more lasting cease-fire, for lasting peace.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano