The negotiating team of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) revealed that only one issue remains in ongoing efforts to resume formal peace negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP), pertaining to what happens to New People’s Army (NPA) fighters while peace talks are ongoing.
In a letter to peace advocates on Sunday, the NDFP said most of the”controversial” issues had already been resolved in more than two years of on-and-off meetings of the parties.
“One issue remains. Embedded in just one paragraph, it pertains to the disposition of the revolutionary armed forces, which the GRP side insists should be included in the framework agreement without reference to the prior solution of the social, economic and political problems at the root of the armed conflict,” the NDFP said.
This means the GRP may insist on a prolonged ceasefire or even a surrender of arms by the NPA when formal peace negotiations resume even before agreements on socio-economic and political reforms have been reached.
Will they ever resume negotiations?
It had been more than two years since the Oslo Joint Statement was signed in November 23, 2023 between NDFP and the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. GRP when both parties committed to work towards a final peace agreement that addresses the root causes of the armed conflict for a just and lasting peace in the country.
READ: GRP, NDFP announce possible resumption of peace talks
The NDFP disclosed that discussions in the informal exploratory talks centered mainly on the contents of a “framework agreement” prior to the start of formal peace negotiations.
The NDFP always maintained that the November 2023 Joint Statement should lead to a resumption of peace talks based on the sequence of substantive agendas well established during the quarter-century of peace negotiations between itself and the GRP.
“It is borne out of the conviction that only a solution of the present ills of Filipino society, namely extreme poverty, landlessness and absence of land reform, lack of industries, high corruption in the bureaucracy, lack of sovereignty can truly ensure a just and lasting peace,” it said.
It added there is no reason to deviate from the sequence of substantive agenda laid forth in The Hague Joint Declaration that states socio-economic and constitutional and political reforms must be reached before any talk on the disposition of NPA fighters.
The NDFP also said the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law that created the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) must remain in effect to enable the negotiations to resume to the formal level.
It added jailed NDFP consultants must be released and the GRP’s National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict it accused of committing the “gravest violations of human and civil rights” abolished in order for the negotiations to move forward.
Toboso renewed calls for negotiations
Calls for the resumption of formal negotiations have intensified following the deaths of 19 individuals the Armed Forces of the Philippines claimed were NPA combatants. Local and international human rights organizations, however, assert it was a massacre in light of Communist Party of the Philippines disclosures that only 10 were NPA members while the rest were civilians mercilessly mowed down in 12 hours of “indiscriminate strafing.”
READ: Makabayan condemns Gibo’s quick dismissal of calls for peace talks resumption
Defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro, on the other hand, was quick to dismiss calls for peace talks resumption, claiming the Philippines is already “peaceful.”
Meanwhile, Marcos Jr. appointed a new presidential peace adviser in former interior and local government secretary Mel Sarmiento, seen as a more moderate hand compared to peace talks-opposing former army general Eduardo Ano. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)
