"I don’t think the CPP-NPA-NDF will give up the armed struggle they have been waging for half a century just like that."
"I don’t think the CPP-NPA-NDF will give up the armed struggle they have been waging for half a century just like that."
To hear President Rodrigo Duterte's latest pronouncement, it's as if the 50-year-old communist insurgency would soon come to an end.
What news reports said is that Duterte is confident that attaining peace with communist rebels may happen “much earlier” as members of the rebel group continue to choose to return to the fold of society.
“(At) the rate that the NPAs (New People’s Army) are surrendering, I think we’d be able to realize peace much earlier. But the most important thing is to come up and comply with the promise to the rebels,” Duterte said last week.
The President revealed that he has ordered the military to let rebel returnees take over housing units intended for them: "I told the soldiers to let go of the housing unit. Just let the surrenderees occupy it. Give it to the NPAs."
What Duterte apparently wants is for the communist rebels to simply surrender and lay down their arms, so they can avail themselves of benefits such as housing and livelihood assistance.
But I don't think the CPP-NPA-NDF will give up the armed struggle they have been waging for half a century just like that.
It's a pipe dream on Duterte's part to believe that the CPP would call on their cadres and members was well as the NPA guerrillas in the battlefield to slay down their arms because the government is willing to give them homes and jobs.
From where I sit, the likelihood is that the communist movement would insist on continuing the political negotiations started in the Netherlands soon after Duterte took office but canceled not long after since the NPA did not want to agree to even a temporary ceasefire while the talks were ongoing.
Last December, out of the blue, Duterte said he would be willing to give peace negotiations with the rebels another shot, but only after a meeting with Jose Ma. Sison, the founding chairman of the CPP, preferably in Manila. He then asked Silvestre Bello, the chief negotiator on the government side, to undertake backchannel talks with the NDF in Utrecht. Bello has not issued any statement as yet on what happened to the backchannel talks.
I have it on good authority that the Reds are optimistic about the resumption of peace talks that would tackle substantive issues such as social and economic reforms first and political and electoral reforms next, with cessation of hostilities and decommissioning of NPA forces the next logical agreement. My source said there's a 50-50 chance that the peace talks would happen, and it's not because the NPA would surrender wholesale in return for housing and livelihood that Duterte wants.
Delayed by force majeure
Three more months.
That's the period of time motorists and commuters will have to wait before a vital infrastructure project designed to alleviate traffic congestion in Metro Manila is completed and goes onstream.
The target opening of the Skyway Stage 3 was originally scheduled for April 1. But a big fire in Pandacan caused the collapse of a 300-meter portion of it recently. Because of the freak accident, San Miguel Corporation (SMC) now plans the 24/7 construction of Skyway Stage 3 so it can completed by July 1st.
The P37.4-billion project stretches from Gil Puyat Avenue in Makati City through San Juan City, Manila, and Quezon City, up to the North Luzon Expressway. It aims to cut travel time from Buendia to Balintawak to only 15 minutes.
We hate to be a party-pooper, but the claimed 15-minute drive from Makati to Buendia is good in theory, but will it really deliver in practice?
Would it really divert 100,000 vehicles per day from EDSA, or would it be another "Carmageddon" in the making, mimicking the vital road artery faster than you can say Epifanio de los Santos Avenue?
A friend who drove one time along the newly completed elevated freeway between C3 in Caloocan and NLEX vowed never to take the same route again as he experienced a nerve-wracking and time-consuming traffic congestion for more than an hour in a four-lane road (two in each direction) that's just a few kilometers long. He said vehicles stood unmoving for an eternity for no apparent reason.
Skyway 3 promises to bring motorists from Makati to Balintawak in only 15 minutes. But that's a bit more realistic than the earlier government claim that with ongoing efforts to decongest EDSA, you can travel from Quezon City to Makati in just five minutes. But with what vehicle? The discontinued Supersonic Transport (SST)?