On the GRP peace talks with the NDFP, MILF
Is Arroyo Negotiating in Bad Faith?

What are the prospects of attaining peace under the Macapagal-Arroyo administration? Based on the statements of two revolutionary leaders from the NDFP and MILF, these appear to be dim even if revolutionary forces are determined to continue the stalled peace talks.

BY CHERYLL FIEL
Bulatlat

DAVAO CITY – Negotiators of the National Democratic of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) accused President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of negotiating in bad faith with their panels. In a forum held here last week, the two – Luis Jalandoni, chief negotiator of the NDFP, and Maulana Alonto, member of the MILF peace panel - cited in particular government’s failure to honor agreements it had forged with them.

Alonto revealed that, contrary to government reports, the MILF has not resumed formal negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) since the suspension of the peace talks in Kuala Lumpur last year. On the other hand, Jalandoni said the NDFP decided to postpone the formal talks supposedly scheduled last August.

Jalandoni, who is based in Utrecht, The Netherlands and is currently in the country, said peace talks were postponed to give time for the GRP to fulfill its obligations, among them the removal of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), New Peoples Army (NPA) and Prof. Jose Maria Sison from the U.S. and EU Council lists of foreign terrorists as well as the release of political prisoners and indemnification of victims of human rights violations under the Marcos regime.

For the NDFP, including the CPP, NPA and Sison in the foreign terrorist lists is a “usurpation of the jurisdiction of the Filipino people, and an infringement of the inherent right of Filipinos to judge on Philippine events and entities.”

Meanwhile, Alonto stressed that despite the suspension of official peace negotiations, back-channel talks with the GRP took place in March, June and September last year. But even in the agreements during the back-channel talks, “the ruling regime always found excuses not to comply with agreements,” he said.

Worse, he said, the GRP even resorted to black propaganda, among them the accusation that the MILF is cuddling members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) and maintaining links with the Al Qaeda.

In the back channel talks, Alonto said that the MILF only agreed to resume the negotiation if the GRP were to pull out its troops from Buliok, Maguindanao, drop the charges filed against MILF leaders on the bombings in Davao City and comply with all the previously-signed agreements with the MILF.

Framework of surrender

The listing of the CPP and NPA as foreign terrorist organizations preceded the GRP’s presentation of the Final Peace Agreement to the NDFP. But according to Jalandoni, the NDFP will not subscribe to the GRP’s framework of surrender.

Reacting to the NDFP’s experience in dealing with the GRP, Alonto said, “How else can one figure out the inclusion of the NDFP in the so-called terrorist list of the U.S. government when no New People’s Army guerrilla has ever been involved in any military action against the US beyond the Philippine borders or even in the Philippine borders? In the same token, no MILF guerrilla has ever stepped into American territories to bomb US cities or of any foreign soil for that matter.”

He added, “It is the U.S. that supplies lethal war materials to the AFP which the latter utilizes to devastate Moro communities.”

Alonto said that more than 50 peace-related agreements were signed between the GRP and the MILF. However, hundreds of thousands of Bangsamoro people still ended up refugees in their own communities. “Numerous modern military operations coupled with anti-Moro and anti-Muslim frictions of inferiority were conducted by the GRP in and out of our homeland.” 

Alonto recalled how the peace talks in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia broke down as the GRP attacked the Buliok Complex in Maguindanao in February 2003 or during the observance of the Islamic religious festival Eidil Fitri.

The MILF “had no recourse but to suspend the peace negotiations and continue the armed revolutionary resistance,” he said. With this, the revolutionary leader described the MILF’s current state of peace negotiations as in a state of limbo.

“No amount of confidence building can push forward the peace negotiations if the GRP continues to demolish with its right hand what it has given in its left hand in the negotiating table,” Alonto said.

Despite all these, the NDFP and the MILF are still determined to pursue peace talks. According to Alonto and Jalandoni, the NDFP and the MILF are willing to resume negotiations, if only the GRP starts adhering to what it committed in the agreements it signed with the two revolutionary forces. Bulatlat

Back to top

We want to know what you think of this article.