Cordillera peace pact offers arms deal showcase

BAGUIO CITY—The Aquino administration wants a peace deal with slain rebel priest Conrado Balweg’s militia to work to use it as a showcase of the first voluntary disarmament of a rebel group in modern history, a top Palace official recently said.

Undersecretary Maria Cleofe Sandoval, of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp), discussed the progress made in converting the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army (CPLA) into an economic development organization during a special session of the Cordillera Regional Development Council (RDC).

Sandoval said Opapp’s chief mandate was “to reduce the number of armed groups in the country,” and the offer made by CPLA Chair Arsenio Humiding to disband the militia “was totally new to us.”

Opapp has been overseeing the conduct of peace negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and smaller armed groups, like the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade.

These talks have not reached the stage achieved by negotiations with the CPLA, Sandoval told the RDC.

The RDC had issued two resolutions on Sept. 12, urging Malacañang to suspend the July 4 deal with the CPLA and to clarify Executive Order No. 49, which asks all agencies to support the agreement.

RDC members objected to the description “closure agreement” that Malacañang uses in documents detailing the termination of the 1986 sipat (cessation of hostilities) made by Balweg and President Aquino’s mother, the late former President Corazon Aquino.

They said the sipat’s logical conclusion should have been the creation of a Cordillera Autonomous Region, a point also raised by a CPLA faction led by lawyer Andres Ngao-i, an RDC member.

Mr. Aquino addressed this conflict in a visit here in August.

Ngao-i, however, said presidential adviser on the peace process Teresita Deles offered a separate memorandum of agreement for his group, which would be designed to “nourish the sipat.”

Opapp has been validating project proposals worth P264.3 million for 57 villages where CPLA members live, Sandoval said.

Instead of new allocations, government will pursue these projects using existing budgets and programs being implemented by all government agencies toward poverty alleviation, she said.

Sandoval said Opapp and the Department of Social Welfare and Development have started a survey to determine the economic condition of CPLA members.Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon