Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Secretary Teresita “Ging” Deles. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
LUCENA CITY — The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) dismissed as “hollow and loud” the declaration made by the Aquino administration that it will continue to seek peace with communist insurgents.
“So far, claims made by the Aquino government that it wants to pursue peace negotiations with the revolutionary forces represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) has proven to be empty,” the CPP said in a statement issued Sunday afternoon.
The party added: “Instead of pursuing formal peace negotiations, Aquino has simply been making empty peace declarations in the media, but off-camera, he has been waging a brutal war in the countryside.”
The CPP also accused unnamed Aquino peace officials of using the government peace program “as a scam to justify the allocation of tens of billions of pesos of public funds which only end up lining up the pockets of military officials and corrupt bureaucrats.”
The NDFP is the political arm of the CPP that had been engaged in peace negotiation with the government for the past 27 years. But the on and off peace talks have not moved beyond minor agreements.
After the CPP declared on Thursday during its 45th founding anniversary that it would no longer pursue the already stalled peace talks with the government because of its “unwillingness to negotiate a just peace”, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Secretary Teresita “Ging” Deles immediately retorted that the state is not yet closing its door to forge a peaceful solution to end the four decades of communist-led rebellion.
Deles said that the Aquino administration remains committed to work for a peaceful settlement of all internal armed conflicts and will continue to seek ways to resume peace negotiations on the basis of a doable and time-bound agenda.
The CPP brushed aside Deles declaration.
“The only aim of such a declaration is to misrepresent the war-seeking Aquino government as peace-loving and cover up widespread military abuses committed in the conduct of its Oplan Bayanihan war of suppression in the countryside,” said the CPP.
“Oplan Bayanihan” is the military-counter insurgency blueprint that aims to wipe out the New People’s Army (NPA) rebels before the end of President Benigno Aquino’s term in 2016.
The CPP said the revolutionary forces have shown “an unlimited supply of patience” to wait for the government to make concrete steps and positive gestures towards the resumption of formal peace negotiations.
In April, the elusive peace suffered another beating after the government peace panel announced the termination of the negotiation and put the blame on the NDFP with its preconditions and demands.
But for Luis Jalandoni, NDFP peace panel chief, the government was the one to blame for the collapse of the peace negotiation by ignoring the requirement in the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) that termination requires written notice by one Party to the other.
Deles had said the government was pursuing discussions to resume the negotiations using a new mechanism, generally taken to mean as the so-called “localized peace talks.”
The communist leadership rejected the concept of local peace talks, branding it as divisive. The rebels insisted that the NDFP is the only authority to represent the communist insurgents in peace negotiation.
“We have yet to see even a shadow of this so-called ‘new mechanism,’ leading us to the conclusion that there, in fact, exists no such thing except for the old worn-out scheme of localized peace talks that seek to divide and pacify the revolutionary forces,” said the CPP.
The CPP noted that since the start of the peace negotiation, the government was pushing to end formal peace talks “by renouncing all previous agreements and insisting that peace talks cannot proceed without the NDFP agreeing to declare one ceasefire after another”.
“It has shown utter disregard of the outstanding agreements by violating these with impunity in the successive arrests of NDFP peace personnel and refusing to comply with its obligations to release the said consultants who are covered by the immunity guarantees stipulated in the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG),” said the CPP.
The CPP branded the Aquino regime as worse than its predecessor in terms of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.
“Aquino’s armed forces have abused the rights and welfare of children, women and the elderly. Over the past three years, at least one critic of the Aquino regime active in democratic struggles has been murdered every week,” the CPP claimed.
“Hundreds remain jailed for their political advocacies. Entire communities have been subjected to terrorist aerial bombing runs that endanger the lives of people and cause massive damage to public infrastructure and the environment,” the party alleged.
In its anniversary statement, the CPP said it aimed to increase its armed combatants to 25,000.
But for the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the CPP-NPA armed struggle is a “fruitless insurgency”.
Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala, AFP public information chief, said that instead of waging violence to make themselves relevant, the CPP-NPA should just surrender and commit themselves to the peace process without preconditions.
The NPA rebels, the CPP’s armed wing, have been waging war against the government for the past 44 years, considered as the world’s longest-running Maoist-inspired rebellion.