The peace process with the communists lay in shambles yesterday, as President Duterte ended the government’s ceasefire and ordered the military to resume fighting with the New People’s Army. Hours later, the leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines vowed to “hit them hard.”
The President stressed that he had “walked the extra mile” and done his best. He lamented that the rebels wasted the “golden opportunity” for peace offered by the only president of the republic who was once a leftist supporter. The communists were demanding the release of 400 of their comrades from various prisons. But Duterte said this would be done only if a formal peace pact would be forged.
Besides, he has other constituencies to consider, he explained. Among these are his soldiers, who lost three members in an NPA attack last Wednesday in Bukidnon. The rebels, who reportedly took the three men’s P12,000 in subsistence allowance, also seized two other soldiers in Sultan Kudarat, bringing to three the number of their captives in recent days.
Those attacks, when the rebels themselves had said their unilateral ceasefire would be in place until Feb. 10, prompted the President to lift the government’s own truce. “Let it not be said that I did not try,” he said in frustration, as he raised fears that there would be no peace for 50 years.
His predecessor Benigno Aquino III, whose mother Corazon’s peace efforts with the communists also collapsed, refused to negotiate with the rebels’ exiled leadership, preferring instead to discuss peace at the local level. Duterte can consider a similar approach while at the same time addressing the issues that have fueled the communist insurgency.
As someone sympathetic to the Left, the President knows that these issues include social injustice, chronic poverty, weak governance and economic exclusion. Because the President does not belong to the nation’s entrenched elite, there are hopes that he might do better than his predecessors in making growth inclusive. Addressing the root causes of the communist insurgency must be sustained, regardless of the state of the peace initiative.