Peace adviser hopes government, communist rebels can 'meet halfway'

MANILA, Philippines — The government is adopting a "more realistic" approach to peace talks with communist rebels, Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza said, adding the need for panels to "meet halfway."

In a press release from the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process, Dureza said that the government and the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines need to bridge a "wide gap."

The release quotes him as saying at the Annual Plenary Session of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines on Monday that "there must be a 'convergence point' in which both groups 'can meet halfway.'"

He said that negotiations with the communist rebels must not include calls for catipulation or surrender.

At a media briefing in 2015, Luis Jalandoni, chair of the NDFP panel at the time, stressed that "it is important that the peace talks do not lead to catipulation." 
Peace talks with the government had been stalled since 2013 over disputes on which peace consultants were covered by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees.

Talks resumed in 2016 under President Rodrigo Duterte but again began to deteriorate in February 2017, partly because of political prisoners still in government custody.

"The key is to find an 'alternative route,'" peace adviser Dureza said. "You can't kill an idea. You have to address the root cause why they are rebelling," he also said.

In a statement in response to Duterte's April 4 announcement that he wants peace talks to resume, Jose Maria Sison — CPP founder and chief political consultant of the NDFP — acknowledged that "the resumption of peace talks between the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) and NDFP negotiating panels is needed precisely to deal with substantive issues and complaints."

He said panels had, before talks were scrapped last November, reached "a substantial consensus ... on the general principles, on agrarian reform and rural development and national industrialization and economic development." 

Among the proposals in the draft Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-economic Reforms are agrarian reform and land distribution, as well as the development of the agricultural sector for food self-sufficiency. It also proposes the nationalization of utilities and of the mining industry.

Sison also claimed that a draft of an amnesty proclamation for political prisoners was ready, as well as a draft of an agreement on "coordinated unilateral ceasefires" that would be monitored by a joint committee.

Peace talks with MILF as model

Dureza said among the 'alternative routes' that government can use is how negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were done.

In those talks, a Bangsamoro Development Agency was created even though the peace negotiations were still ongoing. 

"You have to make them feel that they are already benefitting," he said. "There is also a need to take care of the bigger public who also feel they are being deprived," he added.

The MILF signed a peace agreement with the government in 2014, although this has yet to be fully implemented through the enactment of the Bangsamoro Basic Law that will create a new region with more autonomy than the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao. The new region will replace the ARMM.

Duterte has promised to support passage of the BBL. Dureza said that the government's peace process under Duterte has been guided by the need for inclusivity.

He said this has led to the expansion of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission to 21 members from an original 15. The Moro National Liberation Front has three representatives in the commission.

Dureza said in the OPAPP release that although the Moro Islamic Liberation Front will have a "first stake" in the establishment of the proposed Bangsamoro state and government, the MNLF will also be an integral part of "the bigger leadership."

"We can't do this overnight. We need to learn from the mistakes of the past. We must learn to do things better," OPAPP also quoted Dureza as saying.