RP commits to attaining peace gains by 2010 in Geneva summit

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine government has committed to the international community that noteworthy gains in the peace process with various armed groups would be achieved on or before the term of President Arroyo ends in 2010.

As one of 76 countries participating in the ongoing Ministerial Review Summit on the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Conflict, the Philippines affirmed its support to the peace and development objectives of the Declaration in a statement delivered by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, who represented the President in the meeting in Switzerland.

The Philippines served as Declaration Core Member during the Summit, along with Indonesia and Thailand.

Ermita was part of the panel of seven minister representatives from Brazil, Qatar, Ghana, South Africa, Morocco, Norway, and the Philippines, especially chosen to issue statements affirming their respective country’s efforts in promoting development, particularly through the 15-year Millennium Development Goals in the context of armed violence prevention and reduction with the Geneva Declaration as framework for action.

In a statement from Geneva, Ermita said he gave a report on the gains made by the administration in the peace process, human rights promotion and protection, anti-terrorism campaign, and small arms and ammunition control.

The report focused on five armed groups that the country has been dealing with in the last four decades, including the Moro National Liberation Front, which has already signed a peace pact with the government.

“I specifically mentioned the importance of armed conflict reduction and prevention in light of the Philippine experience in dealing with five armed groups in the last four decades – two Muslim secessionist groups in southern Philippines, a local communist movement operating all over the country, and their two breakaway groups in the Visayas and in the Cordillera region.”

“Adding to the complex armed conflict scenario in the country is a handful of terrorists in the fringes of Mindanao,” Ermita said.

Little progress has been made with the communist New People’s Army, as the peace process has failed to move forward because of demands made by the Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front.

The CPP-NPA-NDF has demanded that the Philippine government work for the removal of their organizations from the foreign terrorist lists of the United States and the European Union.

However, the government has remained firm on its position that this cannot be done considering that the inclusion of the organizations in the lists were acts done by foreign sovereign nations.

In the case of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, significant progress was made in the peace process over the past years, but the talks broke down recently after legal issues were raised on a document relating to the claims of the group over ancestral domain in Mindanao.

Conflict has broken out between the MILF and the government as the former launched a series of attacks against civilians in Central Mindanao last month in response to the decision of the government not to sign the draft memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain.

However, in spite of the setback with the MILF and the lack of progress with the CPP-NPA-NDF, the government remains optimistic that significant gains would be made in the peace process by 2010.

The Philippines endorsed the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development last May.

Ermita expressed the Philippine government’s gratitude for the involvement of several foreign organizations such as the United Nations Development Program, which are continually supporting the country’s peace and development programs.

According to Ermita, the Philippines is continuously working to bring down if not eliminate illegal possession of firearms, particularly small arms and light ammunitions in the country.– Marvin Sy