With 42 days before Mayor Rodrigo Duterte becomes president, we are beginning to get a glimpse of the kind of government we will have. His prospective Cabinet appointments are a mixture of old and new. He wants the death penalty restored and wants it by hanging. Liquor consumption will also somehow be regulated. The first couple of months will probably be something of a martial atmosphere but it is too early to judge.
Duterte’s plan to offer four cabinet portfolios to the CPP/NPA is unprecedented and is creating a lot of buzz. It is a leap of faith to find a solution to the communist insurgency problem which has been going on for the past 47 years. It is one of the longest, if not the longest, insurgencies in the world. When I entered the military service, the CPP/NPA was just beginning. When I retired about 35 years later, we were nowhere near solving the problem. Although many of my colleagues then and now still believe that the way to solve this insurgency problem is to destroy the New People’s Army by force of arms, the government has been unable to do so over these past years. It is time for a new approach.
If offering the CPP/NPA some Cabinet positions so that they can bring their brand of dedication to the government, it is worth a try. This decision may seem unwise to some observers. Duterte, however, must have given the matter much thought in his 22 years as mayor and come to the conclusion that this is the best way to solve the problem.
From the looks of it, there will be a nationwide truce followed by renewed negotiations then the signing of a peace deal followed by the appointment of four CPP/NPA representations to be nominated by the National Democratic Front. Jose Maria Sison, the erstwhile chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, will not assume any position. The release of political prisoners will be done after the signing of the peace deal. And just like any negotiation, the use of terminologies will be important. The NDF wants to characterize its entry into government as a coalition government. Whether the negotiating panel of the Republic of the Philippines will allow this or not will be entirely up to them. The term “coalition government” would somehow denote some form of victory on the part of the NDF because this has always been part of the objective in their struggle—to wrest control of the government. Now, they will be getting into it peacefully. The nuances of terms should therefore be disregarded so that we can move on.
Forty-seven years of fighting is a long time and if the mayor succeeds, he would have achieved what other presidents before him failed to do.
Let us give the CPP/NPA a chance at governance and see if what they have been fighting over their long years of struggle can actually work. After all, four Cabinet portfolios do not constitute a majority of the cabinet.
There are risks of course—like the Labor portfolio. Business always ensures that stability is necessary in order to grow and progress. Constant disruptions like labor strikes could severely affect production. The constant demand for a fair living wage, which is a lot higher than current wages,will most certainly be rejected by management. The consequence of higher wages will be loss of jobs.
How the NDF will balance this would be interesting to see. There is, after all, a lot of difference between waging a revolutionary war and governing. The three other Cabinet portfolios that are being dangled to the CPP/NPA such as Agrarian Reform, Environment and Natural Resources, and Social Welfare are tailor made for them. There should be less of a problem here but considering that this country is already over populated and land is scarce, where the government will get land to redistribute will also be interesting to see.
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Lost in the euphoria of the Duterte landslide victory is the monumental collapse of the Grace Poe campaign in the last three weeks before election day. From a high rating of about 47 percent, this went down to a little over 21 percent after the votes were counted. This was a decrease of 16 points and this is something that has never happened before. What happened? How could the campaign collapse so fast in such a spectacular manner?
It would seem that her campaign ran into a storm that is Duterte. In the end, Senator Poe even lost to the Liberal Party candidate, Mar Roxas. Can both Senator Poe and Roxas bounce back? Many suggested to Senator Poe that she should run for vice president to better prepare herself considering her relative political inexperience. She refused and proceeded to run for the highest position and lost badly. For Mar Roxas, it is his second defeat. But the circumstance of his defeat in 2010 is a lot more complicated. The second defeat, however, was fair and square. But even in defeat, maybe he should look at this as something that is not a total failure. Even with the baggage of being associated with President Aquino, he acquitted himself rather relatively well. He bested Vice President Binay and Grace Poe which observers never believed would happen. He himself surged in the last couple of weeks preceding the election—although it was not enough to win.