THE Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (Pepp), an ecumenical group of Christian leaders, said in a statement that by being able to convene for the peace talks, the government and the communists have shown “their commitment to break the barriers to a just and enduring peace.”
The peace panels of government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF) convened on Monday around 3:30 p.m., Manila time, in Oslo, Norway, in a bid to end Asia’s longest running communist insurgency.
“We hope that this will be translated further to a successful round of talks, especially on social and economic reforms. We pray and wish that this meeting produces a result that can be added to other previously signed agreements,” the PEPP said.
The statement was signed by Archbishop Antonio Ledesma of the Cagayan de Oro archdiocese, Reverend Rex Reyes Jr. of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Bishop Deogracias Iñiguez Jr. of the Ecumenical Bishops Forum, Bishop Noel Pantoja of the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches, and Sister Mary John Mananzan of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines.
The Oslo meeting will be the first formal one since 2011 between the panels after the negotiations under the so-called regular track broke down due to the issue of the release of the NDF’s consultants who are detained on charges of alleged involvement in common crimes.
Interactions by the parties undertaken through a special track also failed to keep the process moving.
Although the parties agreed in an informal meeting last June to resume formal talks this month, the road to getting them to the negotiating table has been fraught with difficulties.
This mainly stemmed from the earlier unreciprocated ceasefire declaration of President Rodrigo Duterte last month that led to sharp exchanges between him and Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison.
Sison participates in the negotiations as chief political consultant of the NDF which is the political arm of the CPP.
Release of NDF consultants
The atmosphere turned around when the Duterte government successfully worked to have the detained NDF consultants temporarily released so they can join the Oslo talks.
“Judging by the recent number of releases of detained consultants of the NDFP these past days, prospects have never been brighter for the resumption of formal peace talks between the NDFP and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines,” Pepp noted.
“This optimistic mood is a testament to the seriousness of both parties to transcend differences exemplified by the ceasefire issue a few weeks ago. Now they can discuss a ceasefire in a principled and sober manner as well as address the roots of the armed conflict,” the group added.
The church leaders cited the role played by functionaries in government, independent lawyers, human rights paralegals and religious groups for making possible the release of the detained NDFP consultants, which helped guarantee the resumption of the talks.
“We hope that the remaining political prisoners be freed eventually to help the healing process in the country,” the PEPP said.
"Dawning of some new hope"
Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza is seeing light at the end of the tunnel for the Filipinos in this renewed talks.
“We all went through several breakdown of talks. We stumbled due to ‘preconditions,’ so-called ‘hardline non-negotiable positions,’ the ghost of the now-obsolete ‘status of belligerency’ rearing its ugly head from time to time. There were many more of these obstacles,” said Dureza in his opening statement of the resumption of the peace negotiations with the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the NDF, which he posted on social media.
He described the revival of the talks as the “dawning of some new hope” being initiated by President Duterte saying the chief executive has “committed his presidency to bringing a definitive and final peace settlement to our troubled land. We who are in government are working now under his leadership and guidance to bring about this commonly shared dream.”
The bold and historic recent releases of political detainees and the record-time, hastily-arranged foreign travel in short period of time to enable them to participate in the peace negotiations in unprecedented, Dureza said, “I never imagined this could ever happen before, including the spontaneous ceasefire declarations that we now see happening.”
Coming together
Dureza called the prevailing atmosphere in the venue of the negotiation as “renewed and fresh euphoria in the air.”
“Our coming together starting today should be not in the context of out-witting or out-maneuvering each other across the table. Neither is this a joust of one side unduly gaining strategic advantage over the other,” Dureza said.
He added, “But this should be more of a coming together of Filipinos interested to see changes in the land—in our land, to be shared for and by all. If we can, let’s no longer call our engagements as negotiations but instead a shared national ‘conversation,’ a ‘dialogue’ where we find together common grounds, bridge the divides and seek common dreams to share.”
The peace talks will run until Saturday, August 27.