‘We want peace of the living’

By: Leila B. Salaverria, Marlon Ramos - 8 years ago

MINDANAO TRIUMVIRATE President Duterte delivers his first State of the Nation Address. Mr. Duterte, Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III (top left) and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez—the country’s top three elected officials—are all from Mindanao, a first in the country’s history. JOAN BONDOC

President Rodrigo Duterte announced on Monday a unilateral ceasefire in the government’s campaign against communist guerrillas in a bid to end a decades-long conflict that he said was “getting bloodier by the day.”

READ: Activists laud Duterte’s unilateral ceasefire

In a nearly two-hour State of the Nation Address (Sona), Mr. Duterte also called on Moro insurgents to set aside centuries of “mistrust and warfare.”

“All of them want peace, not the peace of the dead, but the peace of the living,” he said, reading from a 15-page text, spicing his first Sona with extemporaneous remarks in Filipino and Cebuano, but abstaining from his usual expletives, catching himself from uttering a cuss word at one point in the nationally televised, unusually no-frills event, a stark departure from its glitzy past.

Following preliminary discussions in Norway last month, a panel headed by Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza announced the resumption on Aug. 20 of peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), its armed wing, New People’s Army (NPA) and its political umbrella group, National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

The talks were scuttled in 2011 by then President Benigno Aquino III over a stalemate on the release of political prisoners.

“To immediately stop violence on the ground, restore peace in the communities and provide an enabling environment conducive to the resumption of the peace negotiations, I am now announcing a unilateral ceasefire with the CPP/NPA/NDFP effective immediately,” Mr. Duterte said.

He said he expected the NDFP and its forces to respond accordingly and end the conflict before his term ends in six years.

‘Positive response’

Jose Maria Sison, 77, in an internet message sent from his exile home in The Netherlands, welcomed Duterte’s announcement and said his organization would issue “a positive response” shortly.

“We share with President Duterte the determination to resume the formal talks and work for a just and lasting peace,” said the political science professor who founded the CPP in 1968, launching one of the world’s longest running communist insurgency.

From a peak strength of 25,000 during the martial law years under President Ferdinand Marcos, the NPA has dwindled to a force of 4,000, according to the military.

“The Armed Forces of the Philippines will abide by the Commander in Chief’s instruction but will remain alert, vigilant and ready to defend itself and pursue attackers if confronted by armed elements of the NPA,” said the AFP spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Restituto Padilla.

READ: AFP remains wary of NPA attacks despite ceasefire

“The government has shown its sincerity and we expect no less from the other party. Our people long for and deserve peace and we shall work diligently as we have been doing all these years to deliver just that,” the AFP spokesperson said.

Enormity of addiction

On Sunday, suspected communist guerrillas abducted four police officers in Malimono, Surigao del Norte. PNP Director General Ronald dela Rosa has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to secure the release of the officers.

In his maiden Sona, the President said “the enormity of the problem of drug addiction has been made manifest by the number of surrenderees, which grows by the hundreds each day that passes. To date, we have over 120,000 drug dependents.”

While allegations of extrajudicial killings have outraged human rights activists and the Catholic Church, Mr. Duterte has scored a trust rating of 91 percent, according to a Pulse Asia report last week, indicating popular approval of his widely publicized war on drugs that has claimed more than 300 lives, mostly poor and unshod suspects slain in squatter colonies.

“We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier, the last supplier and the last pusher have surrendered or are put either behind bars or below ground,” he said. “If you do not want to die, if you do not want to be hurt, don’t go to the priests or the human rights (advocates). They cannot stop your death,” he said.

Upbeat reception

Reaction to the President’s maiden Sona was generally upbeat, according to Inquirer bureaus.

“He was directly talking to us,” said Clement Ingking, 21, who watched in his Tagbilaran home the televised speech. “More importantly, he was telling us the truth.”

The President strode into the jampacked Batasang Pambansa session hall, wearing a barong Tagalog with rolled up sleeves and a Philippine flag pinned on his collar, his left hand in the pocket of his pants and the other occasionally waving and shaking hands with guests and lawmakers.

In attendance were former Presidents Fidel V. Ramos, Joseph Estrada and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Now a Pampanga representative, Arroyo was ordered freed by the Supreme Court last week, which dismissed plunder charges that had kept her nearly five nears under hospital arrest. Aquino, Arroyo’s jailer, did not attend the event.

The President vowed to work for “permanent and lasting peace” before his term ends. “That is my goal, that is my dream,” he said. Despite assertions of willingness to negotiate, Mr. Duterte lamented that “we load our guns, fix our sights and pull the trigger.

Painful and tragic

He also spoke of the tragic, painful results of the ongoing war, which no amount of compensation could soothe.

“It is both ironic and tragic—and it is endless. While others see and extol the bravery and heroism of our soldiers, and those on the opposing side do the same as well for their members and fighters, what I see instead are the widows and the orphans,” he said.

“I feel their pain and I grieve. No amount of cash assistance or death benefits or the number of medals can compensate the loss of a loved one. Sorrow cuts across every stratum of society. It cuts deeply and the pain lasts long,” he added.

“While our search for peace continues, let me make this appeal to you. ‘If we cannot, as yet, love one another, then in God’s name, let us not hate each other too much,’ so it was said. I say the same to you today,” he said. With reports from Jerome Aning, Jaymee T. Gamil, Delfin T. Mallari Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon, and Leo Udtohan and Victor Silva, Inquirer Visayas/TVJ