In the last six years since former President Rodrigo Duterte terminated the peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, their peace consultants, including those who publicly participated in the peace process, were subjected to a series of bloody and vicious attacks.
The document said both parties agree to a principled and peaceful resolution of the nearly 55-year old armed conflict.
Progressives welcomed Sen. Loren Legarda’s call to resume the peace talks between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
We don’t owe the Joint Hague Declaration solely to FVR. But that he enabled that part of our history, which, to my mind is our march toward just peace, is a legacy that each president of the Philippines after FVR must be measured against.
It has been more than a week since Ferdinand Marcos Jr., son, and namesake of the late dictator, was inaugurated. But prospects for peace remain uncertain with the newly-installed administration neither having a peace adviser nor a clear stance on how it will proceed with the peace process.
President Duterte has just over a month to go in his six-year term. He could help much in enabling the succeeding administration to resume the GRP-NDFP peace talks, by removing a number of obstacles that his presidency has put in place.
NDFP Negotiating Panel interim chairperson Julie de Lima said Loida Magpatoc is a member of the NDFP Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reform and should be immune from arrest.
“It is important that peace talks continue as this is one of the avenues to resolve the roots of armed conflict.”
Church leaders expressed alarm and concern at the deteriorating prospects for peace as shown by the Rodrigo Duterte government’s demonization of human rights.
“Ka Fidel V. Agcaoili, my counterpart in the peace table in our efforts to try to end the decades-long armed conflict with the CPP-NPA (New People’s Army)-NDF, was a man of honor and conviction.” — government negotiator Silvestre Bello III
Over the last four years of Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s presidency, we may have gotten used to seeing, hearing, or reading about how he has tended to say one thing and, in the same instance, he walks back on that statement and states the opposite. This happened again last Tuesday during his weekly late-night televised address…