President Rodrigo Duterte has deferred peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines anew. According to a source from the Palace, Mr. Duterte did so because he did not like some statements CPP founder Jose Ma. Sison had made regarding the timetable of the negotiations.
“Is he the spokesman of the government?” the source said, referring to Sison.
Meanwhile, peace process adviser Secretary Jesus Dureza said the postponement will allow the government to engage a “bigger peace table” to include the public and other sectors in government.
Sison said this explanation was “bullsh*t,” while a leftist lawmaker said that saboteurs were throwing the peace talks off track.
As a result of the deferred meetings, the safety and immunity guarantees for five jailed communist leaders no longer hold, and a Manila court has been asked to revoke their release order. Benito Tiamzon, Adelberto Silva, Rafael Baylosis, Randall Echanis and Vicente Ladlad were earlier allowed to travel abroad as consultants for the peace talks, but are now being required to present themselves to the court as a sign of good faith.
Unfortunately, two of the five are reported to have gone underground.
Good faith is difficult to come by for two parties that have been trying to make peace—and failing—for the past several decades. At the start of his administration, President Duterte immediately sent a message to the communists that he was willing to sit down with them. Individuals known to be left-leaning were appointed to government positions—and some of them are still there.
Despite this initial gesture, peace efforts have been rough sailing. Soon Mr. Duterte branded the communists as “terrorists” for their apparent display of bad faith in attacking targets including no less than his own convoy.
It’s heartening that the talks are even resuming despite these prior events. Who does not want peace, after all? After all these years, the issue is no longer whether there must be negotiations in the first place.
The tricky part is the how, and it is this effective method that has eluded the country.
We’ve wished long and hard for this insurgency to end. We hope those involved in the talks would zero in on how to do things differently. If they use the same approach and fall into the same traps all over again, peace will continue to be a far-fetched dream rather than a reality we can see in our lifetime.