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GRP, NDFP announce possible resumption of peace talks

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The Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) simultaneously announced the possible resumption of formal peace negotiations after the approval of a Joint Communique signed six years to the day after former president Rodrigo Duterte terminated the talks.

In a November 23 communique signed in Oslo, Norway, the parties said the development resulted from a series of informal discussions held in The Netherlands and Norway starting in 2022 between their respective emissaries.

The communique said the discussions were upon the initiative of former Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff Emmanuel Bautista who was personally welcomed by then NDFP chief political Consultant Jose Maria Sison.

The parties said the discussions were facilitated by the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG).

“Cognizant of the serious socioeconomic and environmental issues, and the foreign security threats facing the country, the parties recognize the need to unite as a nation in order to urgently address these challenges and resolve the reasons for the armed conflict,” the Communique said.

The document said both parties agree to a principled and peaceful resolution of the nearly 55-year old armed conflict.

“The parties acknowledge the deep-rooted socioeconomic and political grievances and agree to come up with a framework that sets the priorities for the peace negotiation with the aim of achieving the relevant socioeconomic and political reforms towards a just and lasting peace. Such framework, that will set the parameters for the final peace agreement, shall be agreed upon by both parties,” it said.

“Consequently, we envision and look forward to a country where a united people can live in peace and prosperity,” it added.

The communique was signed by Special Assistant to the President Sec. Antonio Ernesto Lagdameo Jr. in behalf of the GRP and NDFP National Executive Council member Luis Jalandoni.

It was witnessed by Presidential Adviser on Peace and Reconciliation and Unity Sec. Carlito Galvez Jr. and Bautista for the GRP.

NDFP Negotiating Panel interim chairperson Julieta de Lima and member Coni Ledesma witnessed for the NDFP.

RNG Special Envoy Kristina Lie Revheim also signed as witness.

Norwegian foreign minister Espen Barth Eide attended the signing ceremony held at the Oslo City Hall. Eide also affimed RNGs continuing commitment to act as Third Party Facilitator to the negotiations.

Screenshot of the NDFP press conference held online.

Working towards talks resumption

In an online press conference today, de Lima said NDFP’s resolve to pursue negotiations with the Marcos Jr. GRP stems from its determination to fulfill the people’s aspirations to address the root causes of the armed conflict.

“It is our goal that the peace negotiations would result in comprehensive agreement on social, economic, political and constitutional reforms and provide the solution to problems which have long burdened the Filipino people,” de Lima said.

De Lima said they would reconstitute NDFP’s negotiating panel and appoint new members before the resumption of formal negotiations.

Former NDFP chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili died due to illness 2020 while panel member Benito Tiamzon was reportedly killed by the military in August 2022. NDFP chief political consultant Sison died due to illness last December.

De Lima said serious concerns must still be discussed, addressed and worked on by the parties, including, the participation of detained NDFP consultants in the peace negotiations; the assurance of safety and immunity for those involved in the peace negotiations; the general, unconditional and omnibus release of all political prisoners; and the abrogation of the unjustified terrorist designation of the NDFP, its panel members, consultants and others who are working for peace. 

She also called on peace supporters to push the parties to pursue the negotiations and find ways to address the roots of the armed conflict in the country.

On the side of the GRP, Galvez led the announcement of the signing of the communiqué in a simultaneous press briefing in Malacanan Palace.

“Both sides have affirmed their sincere desire to achieve national reconciliation and unity under the Marcos administration, agreeing to resolve and further address socioeconomic and political issues towards achieving a peaceful end to the armed conflict and armed struggle of the CPP-NPA-NDFP (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-NDFP),” he said.

The RNG Ministry of Foreign Affairs also announced the development in a statement.

“The Philippine government and the country’s communist rebels have agreed to restart peace negotiations after a six-year hiatus, with the aim of ending decades of armed strife,” its statement said.

“I would like to congratulate the government of the Philippines and the communist movement NDFP on their decision to start formal peace negotiations. This is an important and timely step towards securing lasting peace in the Philippines,” Eide added.

In his own remarks, Jalandoni said the NDFP had always been open and willing to negotiate with the GRP if it will be for the interest and benefit of the Filipino people.

He said the NDFP shall ensure the bilateral nature of the negotiations, the reaffirmation of binding agreements and negotiate on a framework of principles that will be mutually acceptable to both parties.

“We shall earnestly pursue the substantive agenda that will provide concrete benefits for the people, keeping in mind always that the roots of the armed conflict must be resolved,” Jalandoni said.

Prior to Duterte’s termination of talks in June 2017, the GRP and the NDFP were close to signing an interim peace agreement (IPA) that also included a stand down agreement; guidelines and procedures towards an IPA and the resumption of talks and its attached timetable, and the NDFP proposed draft of the amnesty proclamation.

Jalandoni added they will work for the removal of “impediments…incompatible with the aims and purposes of peace negotiations in good faith.

NDFP peace negotiator Asterio Palima was also present in the media briefing. He remarked that while Marcos Jr. issued Proclamation 404 granting amnesty to NDFP, Communist Party of the Philippines, New People’s Army and other groups, such programs should be the result of negotiated peace based on justice and addressing the roots of the civil war. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Global confab calls on GRP to resume talks with NDFP

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A global conference on counterinsurgency and peace urged the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to initiate “genuine steps” towards the resumption of peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) by first addressing the root causes of armed conflict in the country.

In a conference themed “The Peace We Want,” the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) attended by 120 delegates representing 30 organizations across the globe last November 7 to 9 in Bangkok, Thailand to discuss the impacts of the continuing civil war in the Philippines under the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government.

ICHRP chairperson Peter Murphy said a just and lasting peace in the Philippines remains their coalition’s foremost objective and is an integral part of their commitment and solidarity with the Filipino people. 

“And so we urge both parties in the process to resume the peace process, which should never have been stalled,” Murphy said.

Former President Rodrigo Duterte cancelled the peace negotiations between the GRP and the NDFP in June 2017, a process which has not been resumed by Marcos Jr., the first president to do so since 1986.

In her speech, NDFP Negotiating Panel Member Coni Ledesma blamed the GRP for cancelling the scheduled fifth round of talks in June 2017 set to approve an “interim peace agreement” that includes a deal on free land distribution among the poorest of farmers.

“The GRP has used many excuses to cancel or suspend or terminate the talks when progress is made on socio-economic reforms. Just before (former President Rodrigo) Duterte terminated the talks in 2017, the working groups on both the GRP and the NDFP agreed on free distribution of land. This was a big breakthrough. And then the termination, which has been going until now,” Ledesma said.

She added that a GRP that has political will to recognize, face and accept the basic problems in the Philippines and agree to work with the NDFP to start solving these problems is needed. 

While maintaining openness to resume negotiations, the NDFP repeatedly said it rejects so-called localized peace talks the GRP for its part said is their new strategy in dealing with revolutionary Left formations across the country.

In his own message to the conference, Manila Economic and Cultural Office Chairperson and former GRP Negotiating Panel Chairperson Silvestre Bello III confirmed they “were so close in signing an interim peace agreement” in their negotiations with the NDFP from 2016 to 2017.

“In order for us to achieve peace in our country, we should not be signing peace agreements alone but we should be addressing the root causes of the armed conflict,” Bello said.

“It is therefore incumbent upon the government to eradicate what breeds insurgency and discontent. Doing so will sow the seeds of peace,” he added.

Since its suspension of the peace talks in 2017, however, the Duterte GRP attempted to proscribe NDFP-allied organizations Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army as terrorist organizations, a petition struck down by the Manila Regional Trial Court in September 2022.

Dozens of NDFP peace consultants have also been killed and imprisoned by the GRP since 2017.

In its approved General Program of Action for 2024 to 2027, ICHRP said it shall continue to inform its members and allies worldwide on the Filipino people’s aspirations for a just and lasting peace, self-determination and national sovereignty. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Advocates welcome report of peace talks resumption; warn of ‘fake amnesty and surrender’

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A group of peace advocates welcomed reports that the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government is planning to revive its negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

The Citizen’s Alliance for Just Peace (CAJP) said the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity (OPAPRU) announced that a presidential proclamation related to the “political settlement” of the five-decade long civil war in the country is a “productive engagement.”

The CAJP added that the reported proclamation is said to be about “granting amnesty to the rebel fighters,” a long-standing tactic by the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) that has been repeatedly and officially rejected by the NPA, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA).

“Whatever the real score is, we hope that the government will rethink its bloody all-out war strategy against the CPP/NPA/NDFP that was resumed when former President Rodrigo Duterte terminated the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations in November 2017,” the advocates said.

Earlier, Marcos unveiled his administration’s 2023 – 2028 National Security Policy (NSP) peace advocates said is essentially a reiteration of the government’s long-standing “whole-of-nation” approach.

“The government of Pres. Marcos Jr. appears confident that the death of NDFP Chief Political Consultant Prof. Jose Ma. Sison from natural causes and the killings and arrests of several top leaders of the CPP/NPA/NDFP have greatly weakened it,” the alliance said.

They pointed out that Marcos is the only post-EDSA president who did not engage in peace negotiations with the NDFP at the start of his term.

“He continued his predecessor’s ‘whole-of- nation approach and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF- ELCAC)…notorious for its wanton red tagging of government critics, social activists and civil society organizations (CSOs) and the human rights violations that come with it,” the CAJP said.

The group also echoed human rights organizations reports the Marcos administration continues to intensify use of laws such as the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) and the Anti- Terrorist Financing Act (ATFA) against critics and political dissenters.

“Unfortunately, this ‘whole-of-nation approach’ and the NTF-ELCAC have greatly contributed to the shrinking of civic space in the country. The recent case of environmental activists Jonila Castro and Jhed Tamano starkly illustrates how those opposing government projects, like the reclamation of Manila Bay, are illegally and forcibly taken by state security forces and later presented as NPA ‘surrenderees’,” the CAJP said.

CAJP’ statement, issued last Sunday, was signed by Archbishop Emeritus Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ, of the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform, former Iglesia Filipina Independiente Obispo Maximo Rhee Timbang of the Pilgrims for Peace, and Karen Tanada of Waging Peace.

“As the biggest and broadest network of peace advocates in the country, the (CAJP) strongly believes that resuming the formal GRP-NDFP peace negotiations will be a productive engagement,” the alliance added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

BAYAN: More red-tagging, rights violations under BBM’s security program

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Global groups condemn judicial harassments of rights defenders

The government’s National Security Program (NSP) has the problem of poverty and underdevelopment backwards, seeing it as product of armed conflict and not the other way around, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) said.

BAYAN in a statement said there is nothing new in Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s NSP for 2023 to 2028, adding the program does not frame the civil war in the country as a consequence of underdevelopment, exploitation and foreign domination in the country’s economy and politics.

“It looks at ‘peace’ only as a necessary condition for development but does not see peace as the result of social justice and genuine development,” BAYAN president Renato Reyes said.

Marcos Jr. last week issued Executive Order 37 (EO37) adopting NSP 2023-2028 that critics said is a continuation of security programs implemented under the Benigno Aquino and Rodrigo Duterte governments.

Reyes said the new NSP also simply reaffirmed the role of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict in counter-insurgency and praised its supposed achievements despite its bloody human rights record.

“This alone is telling as it signals the continuation of the government’s campaign of repression against the people and against all forms of dissent,” Reyes said.

The new NSP likewise pays lip-service to human rights and international humanitarian law, Reyes added, almost to a laughable extent because of the continuing human rights violations in the Philippines.

READ: BBM’s new security policy alarms farm workers

“Indeed, how can the Philippine government claim with a straight face that it deals with security threats ‘in strict observance of civil and human rights, and the international humanitarian law (IHL)’ when activists and revolutionaries are being abducted or executed and civilians are forced to ‘surrender’ as armed rebels?” Reyes asked.

The activist leader said the Marcos Jr. government appears oblivious to the local and international condemnation of red-tagging, doubling down on the policy by saying that “the Government shall strengthen its action against the legal fronts of the CPP-NPA-NDF (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines) to stop recruitment, cut financial sources, and debunk their propaganda.”

Dozens of European, North American and African countries have repeatedly called out the Philippine government on its dangerous practice of red-tagging, a policy alternately denied and confirmed by government officials in local and international forums such as the United Nations.

The NSP does not seek to achieve a just peace, a condition that is the result of genuine pro-people development and the full realization of human rights and democracy, BAYAN said.

Judicial harassment against rights defenders

Meanwhile, 42 global organizations expressed solidarity with 10 human rights defenders (HRDs) in the Philippines and condemned the filing of petitions to overturn their acquittal from charges of perjury last January 9.

In a statement, the organizations said both the original charge and the additional petition filed by former Armed Forces of the Philippines general and National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. is a reprisal for the defenders’ actions seeking legal protection from state harassment.

Acquitted were Karapatan National Council members Elisa Tita Lubi, Cristina Palabay, and Roneo Clamor;  Gabriela leaders Joan May Salvador and Gertrudes Libang; as well as fellow rights defenders Gabriela Krista Dalena, Dr. Edita Burgos, Jose Mari Callueng, Fr. Wilfredo Ruazol, and Rural Missionaries of the Philippines coordinator Sr. Elenita Belardo.

The global organizations said the “weaponization” of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) to suppress and persecute HRDs is alarming.

Karapatan has earlier reported that at least 13 defenders in the Southern Tagalog region currently face trumped-up criminal complaints, citing alleged violations under the ATA.

“Using the ATA to criminalise human rights workers adds to the long list of harassment orchestrated by the Philippine Government to delegitimise the work of HRDs and human rights organizations,” the global organizations said.

“Such aggressive crackdown on defenders not only violates their fundamental freedoms but also hinders their crucial work in protecting and promoting human rights for all,” they added.

Aside from judicial harassment, the organizations added that enduring red-tagging and other forms of harassment violate the Philippine government’s commitment in the Universal Periodic Review in 2022 to protect HRDs in the country. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

CPP vows justice for Tiamzons and companions a year after deaths

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The Communist Party of the Philippines vowed to attain justice for Benito Tiamzon, Wilma Austria and their companions it said were massacred in Catbalogan, Samar a year ago today, August 21.

In a statement, CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena reiterated their belief that the couple and their eight comrades were arrested by troops belonging to the 8th Infantry Division of the Philippine army and subsequently tortured and executed.

“The revolutionary forces reiterate their vow to attain justice for the Tiamzons and all other victims of state terrorism,” Valbuena said.

The CPP officer added the murder of Tiamzon, Austria as well as their companions he identified as Ka (comrade) Divino, Ka Yen, Ka Jaja, Ka Matt, Ka Ash, Ka Delfin, Ka Lupe and Ka Butig “are dastardly fascist-terrorist crimes of the Marcos regime, perpetrated under the direction of their US military advisers.”

In a report eight months after the incident last April, the CPP’s Political Bureau said the Tiamzons were traveling on two separate vans along the national highway eastwards towards Catbalogan City.

READ: CPP reports capture, torture and murder of Tiamzons by the military

The group, later dubbed as the Catbalogan 10, was flagged down between 12:00 noon and 1:00 in the afternoon, after which all communications with the group were lost, the CPP said.

The group was unarmed, it added.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) meanwhile said the victims were killed in a legitimate encounter off the coast of Catbalogan when their motorized boat exploded following a firefight with their soldiers.

“We have long suspected the deaths of CPP chairman Benito Tiamzon and his wife Wilma during an armed encounter with government troops on Aug. 22, 2022 in the seas off Catbalogan City, Samar, but we did not have the evidence to confirm it,” then AFP spokesman Col. Medel Aguilar said.

The AFP added that only body parts were what remained of those killed, preventing their immediate identification.

The military had long suspected that Tiamzon was CPP chairman while Austria was secretary general

Valbuena said that the couple long served as among key CPP leaders who selflessly dedicated their lives to the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation and the socialist aspirations of the working class.

READ: NDFP Peace Panel ‘immensely outraged’ at Tiamzons’ brutal deaths

Tiamzon and Wilma were last seen publicly as consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in peace negotiations with the Rodrigo Duterte administration of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines in 2016 and 2017.

“[T]he martyrdom of the Tiamzons will forever be remembered and inspire the younger generation of workers, peasants and all democratic classes to carry forward the Filipino people’s national democratic struggle,” Valbuena said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Farmers demand justice for NDFP consultant 3 years after assassination

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Agricultural workers commemorated the third death anniversary of murdered National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Randall Echanis, saying government policies that led to his assassination are still in place.

The Unyon ng Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) led a protest rally at the Department of Justice in Manila on Thursday, August 10, demanding justice for the peasant leader who died of 40 multiple stab wounds.

Echanis was deputy secretary general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), president of Anakpawis Party, and vice chairperson of the NDFP’s Reciprocal Committee on Social and Economic Reforms when he died.

READ: NDFP peace consultant Randall Echanis murdered

UMA said it condemns the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. government for maintaining former President Rodrigo Duterte’s violent counter-insurgency programs that resulted in Echanis’ assassination.

“But this US-endorsed counter-insurgency measure, one that depoliticized national liberation as mere ‘terrorism,’ was not the sole policy to blame. By then, Executive Order 70 (EO70) or the ‘all-of-nation approach’ to end the civil war was already entrenched, and gaining more and more notoriety for targeting peasant leaders,” UMA said in a statement.

Farmers groups and supporters hold a protest rally at the DOJ in Manila on the 3rd anniversary of the killing of peasant leader Randall Echanis. Holding the microphone is Echanis’ son and the poster his widow. (Photo by Nuel M. Bacarra/Kodao)

More farmers fall victims to repression

The group added that three years after Echanis’ death, government’s Memorandum Order 32 (MO32) covering Negros, Samar, and Bicol had also already normalized the massacre of organized farmers and agri-workers such as the Negros 14.

“[A]nd the fake war on drugs had made extra-judicial killings, especially of the urban poor, an everyday occasion and a household term,” UMA said.

“Comrade Randy was not the first civilian to be victimized by these fascist policies, and he was definitely not the last,”UMA acting chairperson Ariel Casilao said.

“Duterte’s terrorist legacy is being perpetrated by Marcos by his implementation of the ‘Terror Law’, EO70, MO32, and even the fake war against illegal drugs,” Casilao added.

The former Anakpawis represented further said the same policies that killed Echanis remain at work in, among others, the ongoing militarization of Tuy, Batangas; the proscription of four Cordillera activists and three more in Southern Tagalog into the terror list; red-tagging as a form of union-busting in Sta. Maria, Isabela; as well as in the aerial bombings of civilian communities in Abra.  

“Worse, such human rights violations kept escalating into enforced disappearances and murders. Bazoo de Jesus and Dexter Capuyan, indigenous people’s rights advocates, had yet to surface 100 days since their abduction. Billy Fausto, an organized sugar worker, was massacred along with his wife Emelda and two children in Himamaylan, Negros Occidental last June,” UMA complained.

The group also pointed out that the number of political prisoners had ballooned to 778, 49 of them arrested in the past 12 months alone.

“The peasant death toll under the present regime now reached 58. Drug-related killings since Marcos, Jr. took power totaled to 336, even while he continued to refuse holding his predecessor accountable for 13,000 or so,” UMA revealed.

The agricultural workers also expressed fears that the proposed allotment of P10 billion for confidential and intelligence funds in the government’s 2024 national budget could only aggravate the implementation of EO70, MO32, and the Terror Law.

“[T]hese statistics could only grow. The impunity with which Ka Randy was killed certainly remained intact, and this was so to keep the peasantry landless and the working class precarious,” UMA said.

READ: Randall Echanis: Funny guy who was serious at the negotiating table

“Marcos and Duterte’s fascism are not without reason. They are protecting the big landlords and the compradors, and especially the interests of the imperialists,” Casilao added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

On journalists and objectivity

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Today is the 91st birth anniversary of Antonio Zumel II, a pioneer of unionism among media workers. A former national president of the National Press Club, he was proclaimed a hero of the Philippines in 2016 at his name’s inclusion at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani.

Acknowledged by his peers as an impeccable writer, including former House of Representatives Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, Zumel worked as reporter at The Philippine Herald and editor at the Manila Bulletin. He went underground on the night Ferdinand Marcos Sr. declared martial law on September 22, 1972. He went on to edit the underground newsletter Ang Bayan of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Liberation and its news service Balita ng Malayang Pilipino of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and regional newsletter Dangadang.

After Marcos was deposed in 1986, Zumel served as member of the NDFP Negotiating Panel in its peace negotiations with the Corazon Aquino government. In 1990, he was elected chairperson of the NDFP while seeking political asylum in The Netherlands. He died of kidney failure and diabetes in Europe in 2001.

Autopsy: Ericson Acosta injured way before fatal shots, after he already died

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National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant and celebrated poet Ericson Acosta was shot both on his front and back, bolstering claims by various activist groups he and peasant leader Joseph Jimenez were actually killed execution-style by the military.

In a press conference Saturday, July 29, forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun said Acosta died from hemorrhagic shock resulting from chest wounds that lacerated his lungs.

But Fortun added that Acosta may have been shot way before his fatal wounds and after he died, based on the wound on his right hand that had severe hematoma as well as a back wound that lacerated the aorta at his lumbar area but did not bleed.

“It seemed the shots were fired at different times…On his hand, that was way before the fatal shots,” she said in a mix of Filipino and English.

Fortun underscored that Acosta’s wound from the left side of the torso was probably fired when he was already dead.

“He should have bled profusely (from that laceration of the aorta). He was probably dead by then,” the expert explained of the wound that also shattered two thick vertebrae.

“He had so many wounds and these were in clusters,” she said, adding that Acosta also had edema on his right thigh.

Fortun also explained that Acosta’s wounds on his upper right arm that was earlier reported as stab and hack wounds resulted from exiting bullet wounds.

“He must have had his right arm close to his chest,” she said.

READ: NDF-Negros: Military murdered peace consultant-poet Ericson Acosta

Fortun and University of the Philippines College of Medicine colleague Patricia Ann Franco conducted the autopsy on Acosta’s remains last December 5, five days after he and Jimenez were killed in Kabankalan City, Negros Oriental in what the military claimed was a firefight with the New People’s Army (NPA).

Acknowledging the limitations imposed on an autopsy procedure after embalming, Fortun bewailed that they examined Acosta’s remains after his wounds have already been sutured.

She also noted that the white shirt Acosta’s body was wearing when it arrived in Manila was not the blue shirt he was wearing on the photographs the military posted online.

“There is no independent, immediate and scientific investigation conducted at the scene. That is the problem in this country as far as forensic pathology is concerned,” Fortun complained.

Photo of the poet by the Free Ericson Acosta campaign.

Execution

In their announcement of Acosta and Jimenez’s deaths last November 30, National Democratic Front-Negros spokesperson Bayani Obrero said the victims were killed by the 94th and 47th infantry battalions of the Philippine Army.

The government troopers first strafed the house where the victims were sleeping in and later killed them outside, Obrero said.

Obrero also denied there was a fire fight with the NPA at Sitio Makilo, Barangay Camansi were the victims were killed.

In a separate statement, human rights group Karapatan said Acosta and Jimenez were actually captured alive by the military at 2 AM last November 30 and were taken 200 meters away from the house to be executed.

The 94th Infantry Battalion is also accused of having massacred the Fausto family last June 14 and having killed farmer Crispin Tingal last May 3 in Kabankalan City.

READ: Mission reports AFP responsible for Fausto massacre, other killings

After the release of the autopsy report on Acosta, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN) again called for an independent investigation of the killings.

“The militarization and killings in Negros must stop. We call on human rights defenders and the people to fight the increasing trend of fascist terror in the countryside of Negros that has resulted in the deaths of many peasant organizers and masses,” BAYAN president Renato Reyes Jr. said.

“There is armed conflict in Negros but this cannot be solved by militarist means. The social roots must be addressed for there to be a just peace,” Reyes added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Reds dismiss Marcos offer of amnesty as ‘treachery’

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The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) dismissed President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s amnesty proclamation announcement in his second State of the Nation Address (SONA) before Congress yesterday, July 24.

CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena said their group and the New People’s Army (NPA) firmly reject Marcos Jr.’s “treacherous offer of amnesty and surrender” as an additional instrument of deception and oppression.

The CPP added communists and revolutionary fighters remain true to the aspirations of the Filipino people and that their cause is genuine freedom and social justice is far greater than any offer of amnesty.

“Revolutionaries are motivated not by the selfish desire for some personal gain, rather by the selfless devotion to serve and struggle with the people,” Valbuena said.

In his SONA, Marcos claimed the government’s Barangay Development Program (BDP) and the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program (E-CLIP) are solving the root causes of armed conflict in the country.

“Through community development and livelihood programs, the barangay development and enhanced comprehensive local integration program have been effective in addressing the root cause of conflict in the countryside,” Marcos said.

“To complete this reintegration process, I will issue a proclamation granting amnesty to rebel returnees and I ask Congress to support me in this endeavor,” he added.

The CPP however said that Marcos is being grossly insolent and is seriously mistaken to think that NPA fighters will line up to gain a few individual concessions in exchange for giving up the cause they have committed themselves to.

“Marcos’ offer of amnesty for those who will surrender is duplicitous, considering that close to 800 political prisoners remain in jails, and every day, people are being arrested and persecuted for their political beliefs and social commitment,” Valbuena said.

Persistent landlessness

Valbuena also scored Marcos’ claim that government is effectively addressing the root cause of conflict in the countryside.

”[These] are utterly devoid of the truth and completely out of touch with reality,” Valbuena said.

The CPP officer said government’s community development and livelihood programs, farm to market roads as well as its newly-signed New Agrarian Emancipation Act only perpetuate the basic problems of social injustice and poverty that are rooted in the problem of landlessness.

“The Marcos regime ignores the outstanding clamor of the peasant majority population for genuine land reform, and the Filipino people’s demand for national industrialization,” Valbuena said.

He added widespread economic dislocation and agricultural crisis in the countryside continue in the countryside under the Marcos Jr. government.

Valbuena pointed out that hundreds of thousands of farmers and minority people are being dispossessed of land and their means of production.

“Agricultural and ancestral land are being grabbed by the expansion of plantations and mining operations, real estate, construction of dams, ecotourism, ‘green’ energy and other foreign-funded infrastructure projects. Millions of peasant tillers and fisher folk are being forced to bankruptcy by wanton importation of rice, sugar, vegetables and other agricultural and aquatic produce,” he said.

Since he took office in June 30, 2022, Marcos Jr. had been concurrent secretary of the Department of Agriculture which struggled with smuggling and agricultural product price manipulation controversies.

Police violently arrest agrarian reform beneficiaries and supporters in Concepcion, Tarlac. (Altermidya photo)

Worse, Valbuena said, peasant masses are daily subjected to worsening forms of oppression and exploitation, particularly those who voice grievances and choose to assert their demands who are subjected to political repression by government agents.

“Military and police abuses, summary killings, torture, unlawful detention, enforced disappearances and other violations of human rights are most rampant in the countryside, and are being carried out with utmost impunity,” Valbuena complained.

‘Remember Sakay’

The CPP said amnesty offers to those who take up arms had only been sugar-coated bullets against revolutionary forces.

 The group recalled United States of America’s colonial government in the Philippines offered amnesty to Filipino freedom fighter Macario Sakay and his government in 1905 only to publicly execute him in 1907.

In 1946, some leaders of the Hukbalahap were baited by the amnesty program of President Elpidio Quirino only to be murdered a few months later.

The Hukbalahap (Hukbong Mapaglaya Laban sa Hapon) was a Communist guerilla army that fought the invading Japanese Imperial Army during World War II and is regarded as forerunner to the NPA.

The CPP also cited Presidents Corazon Aquino and Gloria Arroyo’s amnesty programs but under whose respective governments several killings and massacres of farmers would occur.

Valbuena said Marcos Jr.’s government is similar to his predecessors in its drive for ‘localized peace talks’ and ‘surrender drive’ in which rural communities are subjected to military occupation, psychological warfare and intelligence and combat operations.

Many of these communities are later declared as “insurgency free,” characterized by well-publicized “mass surrender” ceremonies.

Valbuena also cited the mass filing of charges against mass organizations and activists under the Anti-Terrorism Law.

The government’s draconian measures against all forms of resistance make their struggle just and necessary, Valbuena said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

NDFP vows continuation of agrarian reform campaigns, ‘with or without peace talks’

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The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) said it continues to pursue agrarian reform to free poor farmers from exploitation and oppression even if the Ferdinand Marcos Jr. administration refuses to resume peace negotiations.

In an interview with Liberation International, the group’s global version of its magazine, NDFP Negotiating Panel interim chairperson Julie de Lima said peasant movements in certain areas of the Philippines launch campaigns from land rent reduction to confiscation of land for free distribution to landless tenants.

De Lima said these struggles are the main content of their national democratic revolution, which is also set in their social and economic reforms proposal in the suspended formal negotiations between the NDFP and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).

In the interview, De Lima also dismissed GRP Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Carlito Galvez Jr.’s claim the proposed Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) is obsolete.

Earlier, Galvez Jr. was quoted by a government website saying “CASER is based on an obsolete framework and is no longer relevant since it is largely based on the pre-industrialization and pre-globalization era.”

“Galvez does not know what he is talking about and is irrelevant to the issue of what is the character of the Philippine economy. We know for a fact that the Philippines is nonindustrial,” de Lima said.

De Lima pointed out that agriculture remains a major base of the Philippine economy, one that remains afflicted by “traditional feudal relations of production, by backward, non-mechanized, non-irrigated, and with low output.”

Composed mainly of two programs, namely agrarian reform and rural development as well as national industrialization, NDFP and GRP negotiators have actually agreed on substantial points such as free land distribution before former President Rodrigo Duterte ordered his administration’s  withdrawal from the negotiations in June 2017.

Various groups as well as former government negotiators have urged the current Marcos Jr. government to consider resuming peace negotiations with the NDFP.

The president has yet to officially issue any response to the demands, letting former generals in his administration to disavow peace talks resumption.

The NDFP for its part has consistently said it is always open to the resumption of peace negotiations with any GRP administration sincere in resolving the 54-year old civil war in the country. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)