Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) slammed Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s issuance of Memorandum Circular 83 (MC-83) adopting a “National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development” (NAP-UPD) to address the 56-year civil war in the country.
In a statement, BAYAN president Renato Reyes Jr. said the plan is a yet another attempt to impose “fascist non-solutions to the ongoing armed conflict in the country.”
Reyes said the NAP-UPD only strengthens and empowers the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) instead of positively responding to calls for its abolition.
“The memorandum says that action plan is the blueprint to ‘end the CPP-NPA-NDF (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front) insurgency and armed conflict’ but makes no mention of addressing the root causes of the armed conflict nor makes any commitment to resume peace negotiations,” Reyes pointed out.
In fact, the circular and the NAP-UPD appears to shut the door to peace negotiations and paves the way for failed “fascist measures recycled by every past regime,” he added.
The Marcos government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines simultaneously announced with the Royal Norwegian Government on November 2023 the holding of dialogues for the possible resumption of formal peace negotiations, but no substantial developments have since been declared.
MC-83 was signed last May 2 and issued through the office of executive secretary Lucas Bersamin.
Reyes said that instead for peace negotiations, the NAP-UPD can be used to justify more human rights violations against progressives who have been accused of being CPP-NPA members.
“The red-tagging and other attacks may intensify as we head into the May 12 elections. We see this plan in action now through the nationally coordinated smear campaign against Makabayan,” Reyes said in a statement.
With the action plan, the Marcos regime will resort to more militarist approaches to the armed insurgency, in line with the US counter-insurgency doctrine, he warned.
“Note that the NAP-UPD comes in the wake of the recent high-level meetings and calls between Philippine and US security officials. Military aid from the US will be used against the Filipino people during counter-insurgency operations and countryside militarization,” Reyes pointed out.
“The NAP-UPD will ultimately fail because it does not recognize that armed conflict is the historical result of social injustice and inequality and this conflict will persist so long as no meaningful socio-economic and political reforms are implemented,” Reyes said.
Meanwhile, the CPP also condemned the new circular, saying Marcos is playing deaf to the clamor for NTF-ELCAC’s abolition.
“[Marcos] is fully aware of the task force’s bloody record. But instead of abolishing it, he lauded it further with the new circular,” CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena told Kodao
Valbuena said Marcos only wants to mislead the people by claiming NTF-ELCAC is for peace and vainly making the lunatics appear congenial. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
