Most political analysts expected the peace talks between the Government and the Communist Party of the Philippines/ National Democratic Front to fail. When President Duterte finally announced the cancellation of the talks, the realists were somehow given their sigh of relief.
It was bound to fail because the group of Jose Maria Sison, holed up in the Netherlands, was at the outset determined to impose his parameter on how to hammer out the details that would be acceptable to both sides.
However, even before the two could talk about the possibility of securing an agreement, Sison and his group had already been spreading demands he knew would be rejected by the government panel. It could have served as a good start for both sides to revive the Joint Agreement on Safety and Security Guarantees (JASIG) instead of publicly hurling accusations and counter-accusations.
As the chief consultant who frequently speaks for the panel, Sison should have refrained from accusing the government of terminating the peace negotiations by President Duterte’s issuance of Proclamation No. 360 and by his issuance of Proclamation No. 374 designating the CPP/NPA as terrorists organizations. Sison was aware that once he raised the issue of violation, he simply opened the door to endless recriminations, for certainly the government also has its legitimate and valid reasons. Sison should have read between the lines the conciliatory attitude of the government. But it seems Sison is determined to scuttle any negotiations by claiming that the peace talks was a trick to divide their ranks, and to identify and secure the arrest of members which was not at all constructive.
Sison should have kept an open mind if only to start the negotiations. He should have considered the willingness of the government to cross half the bridge to negotiate by going to Netherlands to appease his group. They completely disregarded the move of the President in appointing leftist personalities into his cabinet, in publicly dignifying Sison by telling everybody he is the founder of the CPP and was his former teacher.
Instead, Sison and his cabal hardened their position by unleashing another round of propaganda, that they are winning their 40-year-old protracted war for the fact the President appointed some of them to his cabinet, initiated economic and social reforms, though short of their version of socialism, but nonetheless laid down the foundation for structural change in our society, released detained leaders and members of the CPP, NDF and the NPA, and again offered to revive the long delayed peace talks. In fact, he even allowed many of them to leave for Netherlands to participate in the aborted talks.
Yet, nobody from among them realized that their release from detention in effect revoked the proclamations suspending the JASIG agreement. As one observer would like to put it, Duterte is far more logical than Sison because talks can never resume whether it be held in Netherlands or in Manila as long as JASIG remains suspended and the government maintains that the CPP/NDF/NPA are terrorist organizations.
Sison’s recalcitrance was completely negative indicating his visceral hatred of the government, which explains why he cannot contribute something constructive to the negotiations. As a straggler, Sison has his insecurities; that to negotiate could be interpreted by his followers as an act of capitulation or could be accused of “Lavaism.” Sison, in particular, feels that the ageing revolutionary veterans whom he accused of revisionism would equally charge him of the same offense of betrayal.
His unbridled charges against his own comrades whose only crime is to adhere a different strand of Marxism, Sison now finds himself isolated. In the years in self exile, he has developed a variant perspective of Marxism. His statements already bares the truth—that he is not interested in any negotiations. Rather, he and his diehard followers merely want to prolong the talks in order to maximize the benefits that accorded them safe passage and to put to an end the negotiations by raising the usual alibi of bad faith on the part of the government when it did not consider their demands.
During the backchannel talks with the group of Sison, the two parties agreed to include in the package agreement the following: 1) coordinated unilateral ceasefire; 2) GRP certified copy of presidential proclamation to amnesty and release of all political prisoners listed by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines; and 3) Agrarian Reform and Rural Development and National industrialization and Economic Development Section of CASER (Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms). These proposals failed to take off because of the intractable attitude of Sison to demand matters outside of what has been agreed as the talking points or parameters.
The supposedly dialectical mind has now fossilized his thoughts to opposing any government policy that would bring about change in our society. Sison now considers China as an enemy of the progressive forces for abandoning the puritanical Maoist interpretation of Marxism-Leninism. To him, the concept of socialism with Chinese characteristics is a blasphemy to the dogma and a political swindle. But who is he to judge that China is wrong? Can Sison and his ragtag army decide what model of socialism is suited for this country?
Sison’s attitude in treating his ideological line as invincible in effect amounts to telling that his thoughts are infallible and he is now a sort of demigod. But reality tells us that his dream of a socialist revolution remains at the gantry, has failed to take off, and his foot soldiers miserably failing to build an impregnable mass base, indicating they have achieved the crucial stage of strategic defense in their struggle. For his persistence, it now appears that he is extolling the people to remain poor, be stacked in poverty and ignorance, faithful to the promise of liberation.
Setting aside the childish tantrums of Sison, the only difficult issue on the initial points of agreement is the demand by the government panel for the CPP/NDF/NPA to stop their extortion activities they dubbed as the exaction of “revolutionary tax.” This position is given because no two governments can co-exist in the same territorial boundary and collect taxes over the same people for their earnings and property. To grant them this privilege is to grant them “belligerency” status which is not possible because this issue can only be resolved in the battlefield and not on the negotiating table. In any case, the release of all political prisoners as demanded by the CPP/NDF/NPA was a gesture of good faith which they should have taken advantage to proceed with the talks, but it seems Sison is still meandering out there in the universe.
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