By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
The so-called final peace agreement of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP), which is being pushed particularly by General Eduardo Ermita and the like, is a combination of bombastic verbiage endorsing the rotten ruling system and a lot of particulars about the surrender of arms and personnel of the revolutionary forces represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
By LUIS G. JALANDONI
Chairperson, NDFP Negotiating Panel
The so-called final peace agreement of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP), which is being pushed particularly by General Eduardo Ermita and the like, is a combination of bombastic verbiage endorsing the rotten ruling system and a lot of particulars about the surrender of arms and personnel of the revolutionary forces represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
The reactionary content of such GRP proposal for a sham peace is now confronted by the NDFP proposal of the 10-point Concise Agreement for an Immediate Just Peace.
The ten points are clearly patriotic and progressive in essence and purpose. They are in the national and democratic interest of the Filipino people. And they can be easily read and understood by the broad masses of the people whose urgent demands are in the first place embodied in these ten points.
The NDFP proposal for an immediate just peace easily trounces the indecent proposal of the GRP for a sham peace through the impossible capitulation of the NDFP. But the GRP continues to try hard though in vain to deceive and inveigle the NDFP by proposing that there should be a nationwide ceasefire for as many days as there are of formal talks by the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels.
An initial suggestion of the GRP is to hold formal talks of the negotiating panels and to have nationwide ceasefire for thirty days concurrently. The problem is that nothing substantial will be gained by the NDFP because of the extremely pro-imperialist and reactionary character of the Arroyo regime but that the GRP will begin to succeed in establishing ceasefire as the matter for overriding the peace negotiations on the substantive agenda set forth by The Hague Joint Declaration.
The US and local military psywar experts wish to entrap the NDFP in a scheme of using the nationwide ceasefire ultimately to obscure the root causes of the civil war, preoccupy the NDFP with charges and countercharges of ceasefire violations, surveil and spy on personnel and friends of the NDFP who are involved in ceasefire mechanisms and activities and discredit the NDFP in the predominantly conservative bourgeois-owned mass media which are in favor of the GRP.
Even in the case of the possibility of extended ceasefires related to socio-economic projects, which are localized but to be mutually and centrally approved by the GRP and NDFP and run by the local people with the direct financial assistance of foreign governments, there is the danger that the GRP will control the funds and inundate the project areas with police personnel and spies of the GRP.
In view of the harmfulness and perils of having prolonged ceasefires nationwide or localized, it is just and reasonable for the NDFP to be wary of such ceasefires and avoid them and give priority to putting forward the 10-point Concise Agreement for an Immediate Just Peace or if this is not attainable to staying the course of peace negotiations as set forth by The Hague Joint Declaration.
There is no need to rush into any nationwide or localized ceasefires of long duration if there is yet no principled, rational and material basis for a just and lasting peace. The truce can come only if the GRP accepts the 10-point Concise Agreement for an Immediate Just Peace or the Comprehensive Agreement to End Hostilities has been reached after the comprehensive agreements on social and economic reforms and on political and constitutional reforms.
