18-day ceasefire, only first step to renewed talks

We laud President Aquino's declaration of holiday truce with the CPP-NPA.

This gesture will help build confidence among the CPP-NPA ranks on the sincerity of the Aquino government in its commitment to achieving lasting peace.

We hope that the 18-day truce will serve as a period of deep reflection for both parties. Beyond that, we hope that we can see within our lifetime the day when all groups—CPP-NPA, the MILF, and the NDF—will end their respective armed struggles and help the government in rebuilding the country.

This truce is a good first step, but let's not end here. Let's keep lines of communication open and keep on engaging in dialogue. We need to build confidence in our ability to keep commitments and keep the peace. We will also need to ensure that the countryside will be able to sustain former rebels by modernizing agriculture and making it viable.

Only by solving poverty can we truly achieve peace. Let's not lose sight of that end objective.

Achieving lasting peace and ending armed conflict

The Philippines has been afflicted with social unrest armed conflict for several decades, The roots of the insurgency are poverty and underdevelopment. Apart from an aggressive peace negotiations that must lead to a peace settlement and a peace accord amongst the different warring factions, economic growth and good governance must be put in place to achieve lasting peace in war torn areas. The communist insurgency and the Muslim separatists have cost us the loss of tens of thousands of lives in the last half a century. It has also drained our national coffers of meager resources that could have been used to fund basic social services for our people. Achieving lasting peace is therefore essential if we are to truly move the nation forward.

How do we achieve lasting peace? The peace initiatives during the Ramos Presidency of 1992 to 1998 are a rich source of lessons that can serve as a template for future peace negotiations with the CPP NPA NDF and the MILF. The Ramos Presidency arguably was the most successful presidency in terms of pushing for a genuine peace agenda with various rebel groups such as the CPP NPA, the MNLF, the MILF and including rightist rebels from the RAM.

The ceasefire talks and negotiations with all armed groups created an atmosphere of relative peace in the years 1992 to 1998. The peace accord with the MNLF signed in 1996 created a window of opportunity for development in Mindanao. Through aggressive peace negotiations and an aggressive enticing of the private sector to invest in Mindanao, a wave of development was realized which gave way to the development in cities like General Santos, Cagayan de Oro and Davao City. Prior to the 90s, these cities were all backward and underdeveloped. This progress was achieved as well in part due to the emergence of reform minded local leaders in these areas.

The Ramos administration's peace and economic initiatives together with the efforts of strong leaders in the local level made progress in many areas in Mindanao possible. It is a template that should be built upon by future administrations. A second wave of peace and economic development initiatives can lead to the emergence of more progressive cities like Marbel, Iligan, Cotabato and Zamboanga in Mindanao and progress in provinces such as those in Samar and the Bicol Region where the incidence of poverty continue to be very high.


Image Source: Inquirer.net