The prospect of sealing a peace agreement with communist rebels may be over after President Duterte announced he will end—at least for now—the talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) with a vow he would be a “fascist” to the insurgents.
For those in the Left’s legal fronts, the striking pronouncement of Duterte, garnished with a warning of classifying the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), as “terrorists,” forewarns of arrests and the conduct of an “all-out war” against them reminiscent of the Marcos-era martial law.
In moving to stop the negotiations with the guerrillas through their umbrella group, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the Commander in Chief is seen straying from the belief that he is the destined leader to usher the legacy of peace with the Maoist-inspired rebels and end Southeast Asia’s longest insurgency movement.
After all, a tie binds him with the movement and its leaders. Duterte is a self-confessed socialist-centrist who yawns at the West, and communist leaders such as Jose Ma. Sison and Luis Jalandoni were also his “former” friends.
Ordinary criminals
In taking the latest spin, Duterte has decided to cut his ties with his former friends, declaring that he would now become a fascist to the guerrillas, and moved to charge them not with rebellion, but with ordinary criminal cases.
He likewise vowed to build the Army.
“If they want war, I will give it to them. I cannot do anything because I tried to talk to them and asked them if we can reach a settlement,” he said, partly referring to his past overtures with the Left.
Duterte, and even military officials, has asked the rebels to stop their attacks and their demands for revolutionary taxes from businesses as a precondition to the resumption of the peace negotiations.
At the extreme, the government even wanted the guerrillas to lay down their arms before the talks could be resumed, but Sison and others view this as a capitulation.
The rebels also claimed that they have to defend their areas from military operations in justifying their refusal to lay down their arms.
“I’ll be issuing a proclamation. I will remove them from the category of entity or at least, a semi-movement which would merit attention, placing them, just like America [under the category of], terrorists,” Duterte also said.
Duterte’s decision gathered support from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), which still sees and considers insurgency as the number-one threat that the country faces.
“[The] government has done its part and negotiated with sincerity. We totally agree with the Commander in Chief in calling the NPAs terrorists because it is clearly reflected in the numerous criminal/lawless/terrorist acts that they have been committing against defenseless and innocent civilians,” military spokesman Maj. Gen. Restituto Padilla said in a news statement.
In the aftermath of Duterte’s pronouncement, the Department of National Defense (DND) has also said that soldiers will carry out relentless operations against the rebels.
“The President has had enough of the communist movement’s penchant for double-talk and continued acts of atrocities against the Filipino people,” the DND added in the same statement.
“In keeping with the President’s guidance, the DND and AFP will continue to vigorously pursue operations against their armed components,” it added.
Taking his barbs against the communists a notch higher, Duterte also warned organizations fronting for the Left and even businesses giving money to the rebels that he would shut them down if they would not stop supporting the group.
“We have to decide once and for all. If I go against the communists, then everybody has to reconfigure their relationship with the NPA. I will close you down,” he said.
Expected
Duterte’s action did not come as a surprise to some groups, including Karapatan, claiming the President has already taken the stance of the United States against the CPP, especially after his meeting with his US counterpart Donald Trump during the recent Asean Meeting in Manila.
“Duterte’s cozy relationship with the US and his contempt for just and lasting peace drive such statements, for he very well knows that issues concerning international humanitarian law can be addressed in peace-process mechanisms,” said Karapatan Secretary General Cristina Palabay.
“As Duterte cements his ‘friendship’ with the US, he has also openly declared himself a puppet who favors militarism and interventionist policies,” she added.
The military aligns the human-rights group with the Left.
Karapatan said it was not also surprised by Duterte’s statement that he would charge rebels with criminal cases, which are nonbailable, rather than rebellion.
“Duterte and all the previous administrations have long been in the business of filing trumped-up criminal charges against those whom they allege as armed rebels. However, all they have accomplished is the unjust arrest and detention of activists and ordinary folks who have been subjected to torture and other forms of violations on their right to due process and to a fair trial,” Palabay said.
The human-rights group claimed that Duterte has no one to blame but himself for his administration’s woes.
“It is his policies and the over-all direction of his regime that further justify the need for protest and resistance,” Palabay said.
Best option
At a conference about the prospects of peace under the Duterte administration held for journalists early this year, which was also attended by the BusinessMirror, representatives from the government’s peace panel and even from the academe all agreed that both parties “should and must be ready to walk the extra mile” to ensure that the peace, which has eluded Filipinos for decades, would be achieved.
“While our neighbors in the region are doubling their efforts to improve and develop their economy, we are busy fighting among ourselves. Is this the only thing we know? We could not be fighting forever,” said one of the representatives.
“In war, everybody is a loser, but in peace, we are all winners,” he added.
Another representative said that both parties should show sincerity over the talks, with the rebels restraining their attacks in deference to the negotiations, and the military reporting to the Commander in Chief the true events on the ground and not tend to bloat them.
“Sometimes, events are hyped in order to demonize the other side, in this case the rebels in order to infuriate the President. But the government has already considered them as demons, terrorists, so what is still left to demonize about?” he said.
He was reacting to some reports of burning that were blamed by the military on the rebels, but it turned out they were not done by the guerrillas, like the torching of a school in the Visayas, which arson officials later blamed to some faulty electrical wiring.
The representative said both parties should allow peace monitors—in this case members of the cease-fire committee—to do their job by vetting and verifying reported attacks from both sides, which is a good way of deescalating the tense relations between the two sides, and took to task the guilty party.
“While the government will never lose the war against the NPA and the rebels will never win it, both sides cannot be fighting forever to the detriment of the Filipinos,” he said.
“We have tried fighting for decades and we are still doing it, but it is not bringing any [result]. Perhaps, it is high time that we should try the other formula, which is peacemaking. Let us not be exhausted” he added.
The military has pegged the membership of the NPA to 3,000 to 4,000, but Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said recently that the number has spiked, with the rebels using the lull in the negotiations to recruit members.
During the past days and weeks, encounters between the rebels and soldiers have been reported in Palawan, Batangas, Quezon, Nueva Ecija and Batangas, although most of these areas have already long been declared as “free from the influence of the NPA and are ready for development.”
Duterte factor
The government representatives agreed during the event, which was held as cracks in the negotiations begin to show, that of all the leaders who led the country and who have tried negotiating with the NPA, it could only be Duterte who could end the insurgency at the negotiating table.
“He has the trust of the key leaders of the movement and some of them are his friends, including Sison,” said one of the representatives. “Remember that in any talks, trust is the number-one consideration. You cannot be talking to somebody you could not trust.”
He said that if Duterte managed to hold the rebels at bay when he was still the mayor of Davao City because of the same considerations, then the more he could do it, now that he is the President.
He said they believed that Duterte could leave the presidency with a legacy of peace with the rebels, something that no leader before him, including the “strongman” Marcos, failed to achieve.
The representative said that the rebels are also ready to sue for peace under Duterte, as shown by the presence of all of their leaders during the past negotiations abroad.
“Never in the history of the negotiations with them that I have seen such presence and attendance of their leaders. All of them are there, indicating their readiness to go through the peace efforts,” he said, adding that even Sison candidly admitted that he is already old and cannot be fighting forever.
He said that in one of the meetings, Sison even confidently told his colleagues to prepare for the talks.
The government representatives admitted that it would be easier to negotiate with the Left than with the Moros in Mindanao for some reasons.
First, the demand is more simplified and does not factor in religious belief.
Second, the government would only negotiate with one group.
Third, the relationship and beliefs between Duterte and the key leaders of the left.
In Mindanao, the government is contending with two Moro groups—the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Moro National Liberation Front—that cannot agree with each other.
Unless peace is reached either with any of the groups, the government would be involved in fractionalized fighting, with the military dealing with the NPA in Luzon and the Visayas, and with the Moro groups, terrorist and other lawless groups in Mindanao.
Image credits: AP/Aaron Favila