Picking up the peace

The capture and arrest of Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) acting chairman Wigberto “Baylon” Villarico is a definite win for the government’s peace and order campaign. But possibly it may also be a setback to the government’s bid to restart the off-and-on formal peace talks with the insurgent groups.

It’s a win obviously in terms of carrying out the criminal justice system in our country. On the other hand, however, it might stall anew the on-going informal peace talks with the CPP, along with its armed wing, the New People’s Army, and its political arm, the National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).

Supposedly, there are ongoing back-door negotiations,  quietly and discreetly taking place somewhere.

In an official statement issued on Dec. 26, 2023  marking its 55th founding anniversary, the CPP disclosed they had agreed to restart peace talks with the Marcos administration, reached during a secret meeting in Oslo brokered by Norway.

As it turned out, both sides signed an agreement the previous month to resume peace talks after a six-year hiatus. Then president Rodrigo Duterte cancelled peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF in 2017 after accusing the faction led by the self-exiled late CPP chairman Jose “Joma” Sison of attacking government forces while negotiating for peace.

Villarico assumed leadership of the CPP following the death on Aug. 22, 2022 of Benito Tiamzon, CPP’s erstwhile chairman, who was killed in a military encounter in Samar. Villarico is considered the last communist leader at-large capable of commanding the CPP-NPA-NDF, according to National Security Adviser (NSA) Eduardo Año.

The 68-year-old suspect – also known by several aliases like Benjamin Mendoza and Alejandro Montalan – was nabbed last Thursday in a joint operation by the Southern Police District (SPD)-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) and the 2nd Infantry Division of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP).

Villarico is facing charges of two counts of kidnapping with murder related to the deaths of Private First Class Erebeto Eclavea and Richard Cortizano in Quezon province in 2007. Judge Rodolfo Obnamia Jr. of the Regional Trial Court Branch 64 in Mauban, Quezon issued the warrant of arrest against Villarico, with no bail recommended.

In an official statement he issued a day after the capture of Villarico, Año said the capture of the CPP leader “closes the chapter on a terrorist fugitive responsible for numerous atrocities against the people, including leading violent purges within the CPP-NPA Southern Tagalog Regional Party Committee in the 1980s, where many were executed by his own hands.”

As the NSA chief, Año spoke in behalf of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) in thanking the government forces who caught the elusive communist rebel leader. “We will continue to work hand-in-hand with all stakeholders to safeguard the safety and well-being of our people, striving towards the end of communist terrorism in our country,” Año declared.

President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) chairs the NTF-ELCAC while Año is the vice chairman. In the same official statement, Año further noted with smug confidence that the arrest of the CPP leader “is a major step in our ongoing efforts to dismantle the leadership of the communist terrorist group and bring lasting peace to our country.”

Año, a retired AFP chief of staff, might be seeing too much in the capture of the CPP leader. But the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and Unity (OPAPRU) is more circumspect as they begged off from commenting on the capture of Villarico. OPAPRU is headed by Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr., Año’s successor as AFP chief of staff. As of September this year, Galvez reported close to 1,000 CPP-NPA rebels who have returned to the fold of the law, with pending applications for amnesty under a grant earlier signed into law by PBBM.

Being accused of common crimes and not rebellion charges, Villarico is being held at the SPD detention center in Taguig City. Although the CPP is no longer outlawed in the Philippines, the AFP reclassified the leaders and members of the CPP-NPA-NDF as communist terrorists (CTs).

As such, the CPP-NPA has been in the foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) list of the United States (US) State Department and Homeland Security since August 2002. The US FTO listing included the 60-plus known international terrorist groups that include the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) or Daesh; the Hezbollah, the Hamas, the al-Qa’eda, among others.

If it is any consolation for the CPP-NPA, the notorious kidnap-for-ransom bandits Abu Sayaff group has also been in the FTO list since October 1997.

Likewise, the Philippine government, through the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) created by the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020, designated the CPP-NPA as terrorist group. Our own ATC, headed by Executive Secretary Lucas Bersamin, however, earlier suffered a major setback after a lower court dismissed a petition to declare the CPP-NPA as a terrorist group.

The CPP and NPA were not organized for terrorism, Marlo Magdoza-Malagar, the presiding judge at the Manila Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 19, ruled in September 2022. In his 135-page decision, the judge cited: “Terrorism is larger in scope than rebellion; rebellion is only one of the various means by which terrorism can be committed,” the ruling said, citing a previous decision by another Philippine court.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed the petition in 2018, citing the Human Security Act (HSA) of 2007 as basis. If it had won the case, the government would have been allowed to examine bank accounts of the CPP-NPA leaders and members. The HSA law was repealed in 2020 and superseded by the ATA.

The government can still seek to have the communist groups proscribed under the ATA. Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin Remulla vowed to appeal the Manila judge’s decision and, if necessary, elevate it to the Court of Appeals. As of this writing, there is no update on this case.

Meanwhile, the OPAPRU tries to pick up the peace process, lest there be another disruption.