IT IS disheartening to know that the Government of the Philippines (GPH) has unilaterally terminated peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment said.
Clemente Bautista, National Coordinator,Kalikasan People’s Network for the Environment (Kalikasan-PNE) said the collapse of the talks will narrow the path towards a peaceful settlement of the longest running armed conflict in the country.
With this decision, we fear an intensified militarization of communities that will inflict more hardships on the common people as well as more damages on the precarious state of the environment. Both sides of the negotiating table should exert more efforts to reach an agreement to sit down and discuss the root causes of armed conflict in the Philippines, he said.
This recent withdrawal of the GPH betrays a facetious regard of the government in addressing the very issues that have built the tenacity and strength of the armed revolution; i.e., the continued disregard of the economic, social and cultural rights, as well as human and political rights of the majority of Filipinos.
BAutista said the government appears keener in using a militaristic approach to the insurgency problem, in spite being aware that the escalation of armed confrontations between the communist rebels and GPH’s military forces will be heavily taxing to the already cash-strapped and over-stretched Armed Forces of the Philippines.
In spite promises of past Presidents and Generals, the CPP-NPA-NDF has remained un-quashed. It is still able to expand, mount ambuscades, establish governments in remote towns and villages and collect revolutionary taxes. Even the former US Ambassador Kristie Kenney, in secret cables released by WikiLeaks, assessed in 2006 that the Philippine government campaign against the NPA was “apt to remain deadly and long” and that the “total victory over the insurgents in the foreseeable future remains unlikely.”
A glaring illustration of the NPA’s growing strength is the reported military check points and temporary detention of politicians and candidates by the NPA in Compostela Valley and Palawan provinces. This was only a few days after the stern instruction of no less than the Commander In-Chief President Benigno Aquino to crush military checkpoints of the NPA. This is not to mention the several revolutionary punishments meted out by the NPA to the operations of transnational corporations like Del Monte, DOLE, Nickel Asia, and Xstrata and the blowing up of mining facilities in eastern Mindanao.
The group said “It would still be best for the Philippine government, as well as all for all Filipinos, that the government continue the peace process with the communist rebels in spite the challenges it has been experiencing in the negotiations. The peace process with the NDFP is an opportunity for the Aquino administration to show the public how serious it is in addressing social issues like landlessness, widespread poverty, human rights violations and environmental degradation.”
If the Aquino government fails to return to the negotiating table, it will only give more reason for the communist rebels and their supporters to continue their armed struggle and recruit more people into their ranks, the group said.