One year ago in November 2023, the GRP and the NDFP Peace Panels met again after a long hiatus in the peace negotiations, and agreed in a joint statement signed in Oslo, Norway “to a principled and peaceful resolution of the armed conflict” and resolving the roots of the civil war, the very core of why the NDFP is determined to resume peace negotiations with the GRP.
A nationwide civil war exists between the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) and the people’s democratic government of workers and peasants and all the revolutionary forces and people represented by the NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines). And for the NDFP, the determined quest for a just and lasting peace and addressing the roots of the armed conflict is through a people’s democratic revolution that includes other arenas of struggle such as peace negotiations.
Since the formal peace talks began in 1986 between the NDFP and the GRP, negotiations have produced several significant and fundamental agreements such as the Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CAHRIHL) and have set the substantive agenda and method of negotiations and agreement.
The on-and-off character of the peace talks, however, comes from the GRP’s perverse notion of ending the armed conflict without resolving its roots and merely pushing for the surrender and military defeat of the revolutionary movement.
Appallingly, despite the determination of the NDFP in pursuing peace talks, the GRP has been pushing it again to the brink of collapse with the continued attacks on NDFP peace consultants and violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL).
A statement last October 28 signed by NDFP Peace Panel chairperson Julieta De Lima, strongly denounced the recent arrests and killing by the GRP of NDFP peace consultants, who are protected by JASIG, as deliberately creating hostile conditions for peace talks.
Among those recently arrested were Simeon Naogsan, Porferio Tuna, and Wigberto Villarico in November 2024. The most recent case of a peace consultant’s murder was Ariel Arbitrario, killed alongside two other hors de combat in Cagayan, northern Philippines, on September 11, 2024. Another ailing peace consultant, Tomas Dominado, from Panay Island has been arrested and detained last December 10, while seeking urgent medical treatment.
Many other revolutionaries and NPA Red Fighters who have become “hors de combat” (unable to fight, which under the 1949 Geneva Conventions are protected persons) were summarily executed by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in grave violation of such Convention to which the GRP and the NPA have both subscribed to. The Rules of War (or IHL) prescribes what can and cannot be done during an armed conflict.
Demonstrating no respect for IHL, the GRP continues to commit war crimes unabated with its brutal rampage of fascism and militarization in the countryside victimizing peasants and civilians, despite its supposed declaration to a “peaceful resolution” of the armed conflict.
De Lima stressed that the repeated arrests, torture, and killings of NDFP consultants under Marcos Jr. in the past years, despite their protected status under JASIG, represent a deliberate act of bad faith by the GRP. The GRP’s actions, she emphasized, undermine the peace process and violates the basic principles of mutual respect and accountability. “These consultants have dedicated their lives to representing the Filipino people’s interests and are integral in the resumption of peace negotiations. Their unlawful arrests serve only to foster growing distrust and heightened tensions at a time when space for dialogue is critical,” De Lima said.
“JASIG explicitly guarantees safety and immunity for both GRP and NDFP consultants, resource persons, and staff involved in the peace negotiations, protecting them from arrest and persecution. By repeatedly violating these protections, the GRP has disregarded its own commitments and continues to push the ongoing talks to the brink of collapse. It is unacceptable that while the GRP claims to pursue peace, it simultaneously targets and imprisons those working to achieve it,” the NDFP Peace Panel stressed.
Several NDFP peace consultants who have previously been arrested and who remains imprisoned are Vicente Ladlad, Adelberto Silva, Loida Magpatoc, Renante Gamara and Frank Fernandez.
In August 2022, the Marcos Jr. regime with the help and participation of US operatives, abducted, tortured and murdered key NDFP Peace Panel member Benito Tiamzon and consultant Wilma Austria together with eight other revolutionaries. Earlier, NDFP peace consultants Randy Malayao, Randall Echanis, Rogelio Posadas, Ericson Acosta and Pedro Codaste have been tortured and murdered by fascist state forces.
These grave violations by the GRP of peace agreements, JASIG in particular, and of IHL, demonstrate the GRP’s complete lack of respect for the lives and freedoms of those working for a just resolution to the armed conflict.
De Lima emphasized that, despite the violations and attacks by the GRP, the NDFP is firmly committed to pursue the realization of the main content of the national democratic revolution, which is agrarian revolution. [A1] The revolutionary movement conducts campaigns for the minimum demand of land rent reduction to the maximum of confiscation of land for free distribution to the landless tenants in a particular area.
In the midst of the grave economic and social suffering of the people as a result of neoliberal policies and the onslaught of natural and imperialist-instigated disasters, the continuation of the peace talks becomes even more urgent. Tackling urgent social and economic issues and coming up with a common comprehensive agreement on these issues have thus, become imperative.
“It is our goal that the peace negotiations would result in comprehensive agreements on social, economic, political and constitutional reforms and provide the solution to problems which have long burdened the Filipino people,” De Lima reiterated.
It is therefore up to the GRP, notwithstanding its war crimes, to put on track the peace negotiations by either respecting and restoring “the very foundation of trust and dialogue”, or create more hostile conditions that can lead to the collapse of the negotiations.#
