TWO friends of mine have different takes about the New People's Army (NPA).
The first one posted recently on his Facebook that the NPAs visited their farm somewhere outside of Mindanao. They demanded collection from their harvest and warned they will burn down their harvest facility. This pissed off my friend, for they haven't even harvested yet and here comes an "extortion" from the friendly people.
I would have wanted to ask him if the NPAs they encountered were truly NPAs or posers, but our recent online skirmishes on political issues prevented me to do so.
Another friend, who also has a farm, has a different story when we talked about meeting these nice people around. He said they can talk, and the guerrillas will advise his farmers to avoid areas where military operations come. He appreciates that the NPAs would always ask permission to harvest some of the crops in their farm. They are unlike soldiers, he said, who would just pick up crops at will.
Our talk drifted to the peace talks, and he said President Duterte is making good with offering peace, and hopes there could be something positive to offer the Red fighters so they can have land and farms to till.
These two perspectives paint how we see this group who has been waging a five-decade long armed conflict and are now on the peace negotiating table represented by the National Democratic Front.
One could either see them the way the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Defense Secretary see them, as "hindrance to development" who collect "revolutionary taxes", or "terror groups" who burn equipment and buses.
Or one could see them as fighters who see injustice when farmers and lumads get displaced and exploited by big mining corporations or plantations, and seek to tilt the balance in favor of the poor.
That second perspective was echoed by Duterte, when he was mayor he said the NPA is fighting because of "historical injustice" and challenges the military what their decades-long fight versus the communists has produced. As president, he has asked the communists to come back to the fold to work out for peace.
But presently, Duterte as president is treading a difficult tightrope between these two perspectives. In this recent fourth round of the peace talks, the panels have to sign an interim joint ceasefire to meet Duterte's demand which actually is meant to appease a restive military that has actually fomenting its all-out war all over the rural countryside.
This ceasefire issue seems like a cloud hovering on the talks from tackling the real issue of injustice. But the peace panels sees otherwise. They said the joint ceasefire will build an "enabling environment" of "goodwill and trust" to get on with the substantial agenda, as they target the signing of a comprehensive agreement socio-economic reform (Caser) within two years. Both panels have agreed on the main points in the draft of agrarian reform and rural development, and are moving on other points such as national industrialization.
This agenda may be contentious, but without addressing the roots of the conflict - poverty, landlessness, injustice, oligarchy and impunity -- the peace that the poor and my friend wishes for may not come soon. Let us hope the Duterte government and the Red fighters never lose this perspective.
tyvelez@gmail.com