DAVAO CITY—The incoming Duterte administration will pursue simultaneous talks along several tracks to quickly bring to an end the 40-year communist insurgency with a final peace agreement in nine to 12 months after formal talks resume in July.
Speaking before reporters at the Royal Mandaya Hotel on Tuesday morning, incoming Labor secretary and the government’s chief negotiator with the communists, Silvestre Bello III, also raised the possibility of a unilateral ceasefire with the rebels as soon as peace talks resume on the third Monday of July, a week before President-elect Rodrigo Duterte delivers his first State of the Nation Address on July 25.
“To be able to fast-track the process, we will continue with a new track that is simultaneous [with] talks on the three remaining issues… Caser [Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms], the PCR [political and constitutional reforms] and end of hostilities and disposition of forces,” Bello said.
In informal talks, both sides agreed to a release of political prisoners, an interim ceasefire and a plan to accelerate peace negotiations.
Bello said he and the incoming presidential adviser on the peace process, Jesus Dureza, are targeting a final agreement within nine to 12 months to catch up with Duterte’s promise to curb criminality in three to six months.
To achieve this, Bello said, they will increase the number of government negotiators from four to seven, who will hold simultaneous talks with the National Demoratic Front panel.
Bello said that the incoming administration will use the Arroyo administration draft of the Caser, which includes issues of genuine land reform and national industrialization.
Among those being eyed for the government panel are former Pangasinan congressman Hernani Braganza, former Comelec commissioner Rene Sarmiento, and indigenous peoples’ representative Noel Pellongco from Cebu. Women will also be represented in the talks, Bello said.
The government and the communist rebels have been pursuing the talks sequentially—first finishing the substantive agenda on human rights and international humanitarian law.
“The position of the [government] panel is we honor all commitments that we signed. To show good faith, we have to stand by our agreements,” Bello said.
Bello added that “to tackle these three remaining issues, the panel created three reciprocal working committees.”
Bello said that the government is considering declaring a ceasefire with the communist rebels as soon as talks resume, citing the willingness of the communist NDF to discuss it.
“This is the first time that the NDF agreed to just discussing it. Before, if we discussed a ceasefire, it was the NDF [that rejected it],” Bello said.
The government of the late former President Corazon Aquino and the communist rebels had previously agreed to a 60-day ceasefire, but it did not prosper after monitoring efforts failed in the 1980s.
To prevent this from happening again, Bello said, the government will form regional joint monitoring committees after ceasefire talks are declared.
“A ceasefire with the CPP [Communist Party of the Philippines] will be nationwide. Per region, there will be ceasefire monitoring committees from both NDF and government,” Bello said.
“We will also invite third party negotiators [to join the monitoring commitee,]” Bello said.
Bello also raised the possibility of the immediate release of up to 10 political prisoners to join the negotiating table, and having the next round of negotiations somewhere in Asia.
“But so far as the [government] panel is concerned, maybe it can be done in the Philippines,” he said.
Exiled CPP founder Jose Maria Sison, meanwhile, might remain in The Netherlands while the talks are ongoing because the US has retained its terrorist tag on his organization.
“If Joma [Sison] really is a terrorist, why would he join in a peace negotiation. It’s high time that US rethink its position against Joma [Sison]. Where have you seen a terrorist joining peace talks?” he said.
“Political prisoners can be released, there are names who are supposed to be part of the negotiations, they can be released on the basis of Jasig [joint agreement on safety and immunity guarantees],” he added.
Among the key agreements the government and NDF have signed in the course of the often-stalled peace talks are The Hague Joint Declaration, which lays down the framework and agenda for the negotiations, the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, and the Jasig.
Formal peace talks with the Aquino administration bogged down in February 2011 because the communists insisted on the reactivation of the Jasig, a move rejected by the government after the original list, stored in an old floppy disk, got corrupted and could no longer be retrieved.
Sison had earlier asserted that the goal of the peace talks was to form a “coalition government” of the CPP and Duterte administration. This coalition would need to carry out “democratic reforms that would lead to national industrialization and genuine land reform.”
Duterte’s incoming Defense chief, Delfin Lorenzana, said he plans to replicate on a national scale the counter-insurgency efforts that he and Duterte applied during his first term as mayor of Davao City.
In his first TV interview, Lorenzana said he believed that their success in purging Davao of criminals and insurgents can be repeated across the country.
“It’s a holistic approach: talking with and convincing the barangays and the people to cooperate and work with us and report to us the activities of the insurgents. This is actually cooperation between the military, police and the local government,” Lorenzana told ABS-CBN in Washington.
In 1987, as head of the 2nd Scout Ranger Battalion stationed in Davao City, he supported newly elected Mayor Duterte in clearing the city of insurgents, Sparrow units, and criminal syndicates. This close relationship has persisted through the years even when Lorenzana was no longer operating in Davao.
Lorenzana said that he only confirmed that he will again work for Duterte as the Defense secretary on Monday.
Lorenzana is currently the Special Presidential Representative for Veterans Affairs of the Philippine Embassy in Washington.
“I was surprised really, and a little bit concerned or maybe daunted because the job is too big but I think I can do it,” he said.
He said that among his immediate concerns is the Abu Sayyaf, which beheaded a second Canadian hostage after his ransom was not paid.