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Talks hit ‘minor bumps’ on 3rd day but remain ahead of schedule

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OSLO, Norway—The ongoing formal peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) have hit minor bumps on some issues but remain “slightly ahead of schedule.”

GRP panel chair Silvestre Bello III said there have been minor difficulties but both panels were able to meet their schedule at the end of their third day of negotiations.

“Na-stall lang kami dun sa last two issues—general amnesty and mode of interim ceasefire,” Bello said.

“But we already have a common statement ready, except for the formulation of our statement on amnesty and ceasefire,” he added.

Bello said the panels agreed to devote the fourth day of the negotiations on these last two issues.

NDFP panel member and spokesperson Fidel Agcaoili said that reciprocal working groups each met Wednesday morning and reported their recommendations to the negotiating panels near midday.

“It is a good thing that a bigger number of NDFP consultants are now able to directly participate and their presence here contributes to the faster pace of the talks,” Agcaoili said.

Ceasefire extention

Bello said the GRP is expecting the NDFP to declare an extension of its ongoing seven-day unilateral ceasefire in response to the “smooth and cordial” talks.

“Although, of course, the decision remains with them (NDFP).  But from all indications, mukhang ganun .  Tinitingnan mo ang body language nila e,” Bello said.

NDFP’s Agcaoili, however, says the NDFP have yet to decide on the possibility of extending their ceasefire declaration.

“Pag-uusapan pa iyan bukas (Thursday),” Agcaoili said.

The Communist Party of the Philippines has declared a unilateral ceasefire from August 21 to 27 while President Rodrigo Duterte issued a unilateral open-ended ceasefire starting August 21.

“Yung kay Presidente, walang timeframe.  Depende sa developments on when he (Duterte) will decide to lift it,” Bello said.

Schedule of next meetings

Bello also disclosed that the meetings of the different working groups and the committee on socio-economic reforms went quicker than expected.

“Medyo matagal-tagal yung sa CASER (Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms). It took them two hours.  But the meeting on Political and Constitutional Reforms, I think only 30 minutes,” Bello said.

“May nagsabi pa ngang iyung End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces (working group) ay nine minutes lang,” he said.

Bello also said that other meetings have already been scheduled after the first round for formal talks.

“Mayroon na.  In the report of the committees, may initial dates na. The Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC, of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respet for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law) already mentioned September 20 to 23,” Bello said.

The GRP under the Gloria Arroyo and Benigno Aquino governments have never agreed to convene the JMC despite its formation in 2004 and the existence of a Joint Secretariat based in Cubao, Quezon City.

Bello said the JMC meeting, which will probably be held in Manila, will probably talk about the thousands of human rights complaints it received in the past 12 years.

“So maganda ang daloy ng pag-uusap,” Bello said.

The talks took a break Wednesday afternoon. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

 

 

 

 

Benito and Wilma Tiamzon in their first date after prison

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While the GRP and NDFP peace talks was in recess, Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria took a few minutes to take a stroll on the grounds of Scandic Holmenkollen Park Hotel. Read more

STREETWISE: History in the making

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Streetwise
by Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
History in the making
The past weeks have been a roller coaster ride for many of us – human rights activists working hard for the release of political prisoners, the political prisoners themselves and their loved ones, peace advocates mobilizing public support for the resumption of peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philipines (NDFP) and no doubt even the two negotiating panels.
Will the first batch of political prisoners, 22 consultants of the NDFP peace panel, be released in time for the start of the formal peace talks this 22 August?  Or will the talks be postponed once more to give time for their release repeatedly hamstrung by legal requisites and bureaucratic delay?
Will the exchange of harsh words between President Rodrigo Roa Duterte and his erstwhile professor, founding chairperson of the Communist Party of the Philippines and now NDFP Chief Political Consultant, Jose Maria Sison, escalate further and jeopardize the peace talks? Or will their political maturity and commitment to a higher good rule the day?
A week ago, while monsoon rains lashed the country, the political storm clouds began lifting. President Duterte invited NDFP political and legal consultants to the Palace along with the GRP panel. What ensued was described by the NDFP consultants as light, cordial, humor-laden and a breakthrough for the political prisoners’ release with direct, unequivocal instructions from the president to speed things up. He also repeated his previously stated stand against the filing trumped-up criminal cases against Leftist leaders and members as the previous administrations of Arroyo and Aquino III were wont to do.
The grant of bail for the NDFP consultants and two others (for humanitarian reasons), the release orders, the passports and visas and the allow departure orders soon followed one after the other.  Not fast enough for those pining for their loved one’s release and the human rights activists who were burning both ends of the candle to fulfill all the legal paperwork and requirements.  And a bit too close to call for the Oslo talks just days away.
But in the end, it was well worth it. The beaming smiles, teary eyes, clenched fists, hearty handshakes, tight hugs and never-ending group photos attest to the outpouring of relief and joy at the first round of releases of political prisoners.  The NDFP perceives this to be in the spirit of what President Duterte promised to NDFP emissaries even before he was inaugurated; that he would declare a general amnesty for thus unjustly incarcerated for their political beliefs, subject to the concurrence of Congress, in order to lay the ground for successful talks and the final resolution of the four decades-long armed conflict between government and the revolutionary movement.
The releases augur well for the peace talks, a qualitative leap in confidence-building that was soon reciprocated with the declaration of a unilateral ceasefire by the CPP-NPA-NDFP to take effect a day before and a day after the first round of formal peace talks in Oslo, Norway. As we write, Secretary Jesus Dureza, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, has announced that President Duterte has restored the GRP’s unilateral ceasefire as well starting midnight of August 21 “to last as long as necessary to bring peace to the land”.
In truth, we have not seen such a public display of happiness, optimism and determination to work towards the goal of a just and lasting peace as now.
Good will, hard work, imagination, cooperation and creative language engineering will be required from both sides as they keep their focus on the immediate objective of success in the first round of formal talks as well as the long-term goal of inking bilateral agreements on the remaining substantive agenda: economic and social reforms; political and constitutional reforms; and end of hostilities and disposition of forces.
From experience, there will be unavoidable and avoidable complications, intended and unintended distractions, compounded by miscommunications and missteps.  Each side will be faced with the huge challenge of forging ahead while avoiding pitfalls, especially coming at loggerheads on major and even minor issues that could develop into an extended impasse.
Each side will be constantly under pressure by public opinion and their respective constituencies to try to be as accommodating as possible on the negotiating table while being firm on principle, as each side sees it.   They must appreciate the objective constraints and even the subjective limitations of each side while working towards reaching agreements that will stand the test of the people’s judgement as well as the judgement of history.  And always, always they must keep in mind and take to heart what is good for the majority of the Filipino people, even as each Party will have its own interpretation of what exactly that means.
Many times we have been asked how far we think the peace negotiations can go, what really is possible under the Duterte administration that has vowed to be “inclusive” and the harbinger of “change” but is in fact dominated still by the political and economic elite as reflected in Cabinet appointments to key positions and his majority backing in the Senate and House of Representatives.
How far can progressive, pro-people and nationalist reforms pushed by the NDFP advance through the peace talks even as the local oligarchy and foreign monopoly capitalist firms inevitably start to mount stiff opposition, the US and other imperialist powers plot interventionist moves, and the military, police and other state security forces threaten a coup d’etat against President Duterte?
In the past, even peace advocates and other progressives could only reply with qualified optimism. This time, there is reason for more optimism.
In a few days, the entire NDFP negotiating panel which has been based in Europe for at least three decades will be able to confer directly with a dozen or so consultants who mostly have been in the field all these time before their arrest. The firsthand and face-to-face sharing of experiences, views, situationers and proposals will be unprecedented and will certainly enrich the information-and-knowledge stock of the NDFP panel and sharpen and fine-tune its own proposals and positioning in the negotiations, especially with respect to the substantive agenda on reforms. This could considerably facilitate the discussions on the negotiating table itself and raise the probability of arriving at mutually acceptable propositions.
Indeed while it is still anyone’s guess, efforts to still the guns of war in exchange for a just and lasting peace based on addressing the underlying roots of armed conflict must be sustained, nurtured and even defended by all concerned, that means by each and every one of us.
For social reformers, political activists as well as peace and human rights advocates this translates to pressing on with the struggle for substantial and fundamental reforms in the socio-economic, political and cultural spheres so that the agreements on the substantive agenda are amplified, enriched and bolstered thereby increasing their chances of being upheld and implemented by both Parties. #
Published in Business World
22 August 2016

STREETWISE: Why peace talks hang in the balance

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Streetwise
By Carol Pagaduan-Araullo
Why peace talks still hang in the balance
And so it has come to this.  After stoking such high expectations about the resumption of peace talks between the  Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and what the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP)  considers the top “security threat” in the country today — the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP) — President Rodrigo Duterte now scoffs at the  strength and significance of these revolutionary forces.  He also calls their acknowledged leader, Jose Maria Sison, who he had earlier respectfully referred to as his political mentor, “arrogant” for rapping him about giving ultimatums to the revolutionary movement.
During non-stop visits to military camps all over the country, Mr. Duterte in effect tells his audience of military officials and soldiers, in his signature kanto boy style, that he thinks he is doing the CPP-NPA-NDFP a big favor by engaging them in peace negotiations.
Why, he even declared a unilateral ceasefire effective immediately at his SONA, no less.
But the CPP-NPA-NDFP did not reciprocate with its own unilateral ceasefire declaration after he gave a deadline of 5pm last July 30. (The CPP announced it would make a declaration at 8pm).
So Mr. Duterte lifts the GRP’s unilateral ceasefire at 7pm and he tells the military and the police that they can go back to what they have been trying to do for more than four decades; that is, defeat the NPA militarily and decimate the CPP and NDFP cadre corps through a “legal offensive” utilizing fabricated criminal cases. (Not surprisingly, he sounds much less belligerent and derisive of the CPP-NPA-NDFP, if at all, when addressing a non-military audience, such as the PCCRV.)
But wait a minute. Mr. Duterte’s peace adviser Jesus Dureza says the August 20 talks are still on track. So does Mr. Luis Jalandoni, NDFP chief peace negotiator. What is going on here?
As it turns out, a unilateral ceasefire declaration, whether by the GRP or the CPP-NPA-NDFP, was never a precondition to the resumption of the peace talks in Oslo, Norway.  As a matter of fact, the consensus reached by the two sides last June 15 (contained in their Oslo Joint Statement) was that the “mode of interim ceasefire” would be discussed when the formal talks resumed in July alongside “an amnesty declaration for the release of all detained political prisoners, subject to the concurrence of Congress”.
Mr. Duterte’s dramatic declaration of a unilateral ceasefire at his July 25 SONA was his big-bang gesture that unfortunately ended in a whimper.
When Duterte’s people failed to communicate to the NDFP the full text of the AFP SOMO (Suspension of Offensive Military Operations) and the PNP SOPO (Suspension of Offensive Police Operations) in a timely manner; military maneuvers and occupation of rural civilian communities continued unabated; an armed clash took place resulting in the death of a member of a notorious paramilitary group — all these contributed to a delay in the CPP-NPA-NDFP’s reciprocal declaration of a unilateral ceasefire.
In the end, Mr. Duterte’s precipitate ceasefire declaration was undermined by his own people as well as his precipitate decision to recall it — two hours after his arbitrary deadline and one hour before the anticipated CPP-NPA-NDFP announcement of its ceasefire.
In the meantime, there have been no releases of the more than 500 political prisoners nationwide and counting. As in zero. Zilch. This, after Mr. Duterte’s ever-so-generous offer to grant a general amnesty in meetings with the NDFP official representative, even before his inauguration. “I know most if not all of them (political prisoners) are being held on trumped-up charges” he reportedly said, priding himself to know, after having been a prosecutor for many years, the quality of justice meted out in Philippine courts.
Twenty two NDFP peace consultants remain behind bars, three of them convicted, on the basis of trumped-up criminal cases.  There are more than eighty political prisoners who are sick, elderly, husband-and-wife detainees, or for other humanitarian considerations, deserve to be released immediately.
Like all political prisoners, they are victims of political persecution and  an ongoing miscarriage of justice as part of the government’s insidious scheme to deal with political dissenters by illegally arresting them, placing them in indefinite detention until they can be convicted of spurious criminal charges and then made to rot in prison for the rest of their productive lives.
By the way, the easiest way to do this is to plant a piece of grenade in their belongings upon arrest for that makes their case non-bailable. (The grenade is recyclable for the next unsuspecting victim.) No use charging them with the more appropriate political crime of simple rebellion since that is more difficult to prove and is, in fact, bailable.
It goes without saying that they are vilified as “communist terrorists”, murderers, arsonists, robbers, kidnappers and what have you all the better to deny them any kind of public sympathy. (Notably, they do not pin the favorite and most reviled kind of crime of late, illegal drug trafficking, against these activists and revolutionaries because that would indeed be laughable.)
Not that political dissenters are no longer the object or targets of extrajudicial killing by the state’s security forces. It’s just that dealing with the so many “enemies of the state” via this most brutal of means as in the time of President Gloria Arroyo, raised a howl of protest from the local and international human rights community.  Too costly politically so the government came up with this “legal offensive” scheme.
The Arroyo regime put up the Inter-agency Legal Action Group (IALAG) tasked to investigate, prosecute, monitor and handle litigation processes of cases involving national security.  It ended up as the government agency responsible for fabricating criminal lawsuits against the alleged top leadership of the CPP-NPA-NDFP and even political activists that the government suspects are members or supporters of the revolutionary movement.  The IALAG has officially been abolished but its function has been institutionalized in the state’s police, prosecutorial as well as judicial system.
Taken in this light, the call for the release of all political prisoners is valid in its own right.
As a means to forging ahead with the peace negotiations and ultimately achieving a just and lasting peace, their release gains even more urgency and is deserving of the broadest public support. #
Published in Business World
8 August 2016

STREETWISE: Dark clouds over GPH-NDFP peace talks

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By Carol P. Araullo
PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte’s dramatic declaration of a unilateral ceasefire vis a vis the CPP-NPA-NDFP to usher in the peace talks slated to resume on August 20 was, for all intents and purposes, one of the high points of his one-and-a-half-hour-long State of the Nation Address (SONA) last July 25.  He said it was to be effective immediately.
The President’s announcement was generally met with applause, enthusiasm and great expectations. The public awaited a similar declaration from the CPP-NPA-NDFP leadership in reciprocation of Mr. Duterte’s bold and grand gesture.

Read more

Sison: NDFP has been patient and working hard for peace

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NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC FRONT OF THE PHILIPPINES (NDFP) chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said that President Rodrigo Duterte failed to display patience in preempting the Communist Party of the Philippines’ announcement of its own unilateral declaration of ceasefire last night.

In this interview, Sison responds to Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process chairperson Jesus Dureza’s statement issued earlier today.  Read more

NPA to Duterte: You have been deceived, ridiculed

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THE NEW PEOPLE’S ARMY (NPA) said that President Rodrigo Duterte was deceived by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) when it claimed the ambush that killed one paramilitary trooper and injured four others in Bagnakan, Sitio Muling, Barangay Gupitan, Kapalong, Davao del Norte last July 27 was unprovoked.

In response to Duterte’s demand to explain the ambush, NPA ComVal-North Davao-South Agusan Subregional Command’s spokesperson Aris Francisco said in a statement that the Civilian Auxilliary Force Geographical Unit (CAFGU) under the 72nd Infantry Battallion of the Philippine Army and Alamara paramilitary troops were engaged in an active combat operation when they were ambushed by the NPA. Read more

No contradiction in safe conduct pass for NDFP consultants–Bello

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MANILA—The government’s chief negotiator does not see contradictions between earlier announced plans to release National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultants and President Rodrigo Duterte’s recent statement that he will only issue them safe conduct passes.

In his speech at the Philippine Air Force anniversary celebrations last July 5, Duterte said he “…is not ready to release everybody” but will only issue safe conduct passes for NDFP consultants Jose Maria Sison, Benito Tiamzon, Wilma Austria and NDFP panel chairperson Luis Jalandoni.

In May, NDFP spokesperson and peace panel member Fidel Agcaoili announced that Duterte told him he plans on issuing a general amnesty order for all political prisoners, numbering more than 500. Read more

Carol Pagaduan Araullo’s STREETWISE: Duterte and the Left

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The right is always the party sector associated with the interests of the upper or dominant classes, the left the sector expressive of the lower economic or social classes, and the center that of the middle classes. Historically this criterion seems acceptable. The conservative right has defended entrenched prerogatives, privileges and powers; the left has attacked them. The right has been more favorable to the aristocratic position, to the hierarchy of birth or of wealth; the left has fought for the equalization of advantage or of opportunity, for the claims of the less advantaged. Defense and attack have met, under democratic conditions, not in the name of class but in the name of principle; but the opposing principles have broadly corresponded to the interests of the different classes. — Robert M. MacIver, The Web of Government (1947) 

Rodrigo Duterte, longtime mayor of Mindanao’s premier city, Davao, will be the sixteenth president of the Republic of the Philippines upon his inauguration on 30 June 2016. He is a conundrum to many people both to the left and right of the Philippine political spectrum.

For those on the Right who support him — who comprise the socio-economic elite, the dominant classes, the status quoers, the political conservatives, and reactionaries — Duterte is what the ruling system needs to “fix” what is broken and in so doing maintain and strengthen it further.

During the campaign, they lapped up his diatribes against rampant criminality especially drug abuse. They applauded when he railed against corruption in government. They cheered when he denounced incompetence and the lack of political will to crack down on both. They jeered with Duterte when he spat out the Aquino administration’s “Daang Matuwid” catchphrase.

For the Rightists who believe in Duterte, he is just what the system needs at this time. Not so much to bring about any substantive changes, but to act as the charismatic demagogue who can make the people believe that the system can still be fixed and that he is the one to do it.

Whether they are gleefully cheering Duterte on or warily accepting his ascent to the presidency despite his pedestrian language, controversial record, and association with the Left, it is mainly because he appears to have succeeded more than any of the other presidential candidates in doing so.

For one, his law and order tag line, while neither new nor original, resonated with even the lower to middle income classes. Those who live hardscrabble lives are much more vulnerable to being victimized by the anarchy, violence and rough-and-tumble of the mean streets of the country’s cities. The upper and elite classes who live in exclusive subdivisions, work and play in highly-secured environs, and travel using tinted, air-conditioned luxury vehicles are relatively spared the aggravations of petty criminality and street-level lawlessnes.

The Leftists, more specifically the Makabayan bloc of progressives in Congress, officially supported Duterte’s closest rival, Senator Grace Poe, but saw many of its avowed constituency either gradually shifting to Duterte or, as was the case in Davao City and most of Mindanao, stubbornly backing Duterte from the very beginning.

It didn’t help that Poe’s campaign failed to energize Makabayan’s mass base and other staunch oppositionists to Aquino’s rule with its weak and halting critique of the outgoing administration. Poe’s fairly progressive platform she shared with Makabayan was not highlighted during her campaign and did not quite make its mark in the public consciousness. Poe’s slogan “Puso at Galing” could not sustain its feel-good vibe as the campaign polemics heated up and rivals had to starkly differentiate themselves from the Aquino-backed candidate, Mar Roxas.

In the thick of his campaign, Duterte agreed to a high-profile role in the release of policemen held captive by the New People’s Army (NPA) or what the latter calls their prisoners-of-war. This was followed by his well-publicized Skype conversation with Prof. Jose Maria Sison, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman.

Duterte said he would immediately resume peace talks with the underground umbrella organization, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) representing the CPP, NPA and 16 other revolutionary organizations should he win. He has even stated that he is open to entering into a “coalition” with them. He has also unabashedly described himself as a “Leftist” and “socialist.”

Upon his victory in the presidential race, he announced his willingness to set aside four Cabinet positions — labor, agrarian reform, social work and environment and natural resources — to be filled by nominees of the CPP.

These pronouncements taken together with his record of non-antagonistic and, even more so, friendly ties with the New People’s Army in Davao City, as well as support for the Leftist movement in general, underscore three aspects of Duterte that distinguish him from other run-of-the-mill bourgeois politicians.

First, he does not harbor a rabid, anti-communist bias having had exposure to revolutionary concepts and organizations since his youth. He does not consider revolutionaries as terrorists nor traitors but as patriots who are seeking radical societal change for the good of the majority of the people. While his views may not coincide completely with the communist-led movement, he recognizes that the objective conditions of social injustice and vast inequality are the fertile ground on which the entire national democratic movement thrives. He shows respect for the movement’s leaders; he acknowledges the CPP-NPA-NDFP as a significant force to contend with.

Second, because he acknowledges the deep socio-economic and political underpinnings of armed conflicts, he knows these cannot be resolved by military means alone. Thus, he has publicly-announced his commitment to resume peace talks with the NDFP until a negotiated political settlement or, even much earlier, an agreement for immediate truce and cooperation is reached.

He has also repeatedly declared his intention to release all political prisoners, most specially the 18 NDFP consultants covered by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees and the sick, women and elderly, for humanitarian reasons.

Third, Duterte has a strong, idiosyncratic character manifested in his refusal to kowtow to conventional ideas and norms about how a presidential aspirant or an elected president should behave towards the country’s former colonizer, the US of A; or how the presumptive president should relate to the pillars of the reactionary system — Congress, the Supreme Court and the judiciary, the civilian bureaucracy, and the military, the hierarchical church foremost of which are the bishops of the Catholic Church, the big landlords and big business including multinationals and their local comprador partners and dummies.

More than a month away from his inauguration as President of the Republic, Mayor Duterte has stepped up the momentum for change during the transition with statements and decisions no one had expected or predicted. The difficulty in anticipating these lie partly in their being apparently inconsistent or contradictory and irreconciliable, such as continuing the neoliberal economic policies of the Aquino government while offering socio-economic cabinet posts to the communists. But these could also be seen as bold, if unorthodox, yet carefully calibrated measures towards his vision of a reformed “socialist” society while maintaining the tenuous equilibrium between the status quo and reform.

Mayor Duterte has displayed exceptional brinksmanship in proving that an avowed Leftist and Socialist can win and wield the Presidency while reassuring the Right that he will keep his oath to preserve the system. So far, these are positive signs of how well, how fast, and how far he will and can go towards instituting genuine change with the Left behind and alongside his Presidency.

–Carol Pagaduan-Araullo is a medical doctor by training, social activist by choice, columnist by accident, happy partner to a liberated spouse and proud mother of two.  Her column STREETWISE  is originally published by BusinessWorld. http://www.m.bworldonline.com/m_content.php?section=Opinion&id=127956)

 

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Ka Roger and Ka Soly laid to rest

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Here is a video of the funeral march of Gregorio and Soledad Rosal who were finally laid to rest in Ibaan, Batangas last March 31.

Ka Roger died due to a heart attack last 2011 while his wife Ka Solly was killed in an encounter in Southern Tagalog in 2013.

Roger acted as Communist Party of the Philippines spokesperson until his death. His remains were hidden for five years due to security threats.