The local communists and both their armed and unarmed cadres have just broken the months-old ceasefire that was supposed to be part of the ongoing peace process in Rome (transferred there from wintry Oslo to suit the warm-blooded Filipino negotiators).
President Duterte responded by ordering his troops back into the field, labeling the communists as terrorists (I can hear the Americans crowing, “We told you so!”) and ordering the NDF negotiators arrested should they be foolhardy enough to return to Manila.
Now what are the local Reds complaining about?
They were already given two and a half Cabinet seats by Duterte, unprecedented in post-war history. This builds on the leftist bloc of nearly two dozen congressmen they have accumulated over the years by claiming “marginalized” status under the party-list system, having been unable—as Duterte himself earlier pointed out—to win a single congressional district on their own merits.
They secured the release from imprisonment of key leaders just by agreeing to restart the peace process, including my old friend and fraternity brother Benny Tiamzon, whom my brods and I had high hopes of pushing as a party-list candidate in the 2019 mid-term elections if he were so minded.
Throughout the ceasefire, as they have done before, they bought time and space to preserve and even expand their military presence in the countryside—certainly enough to mount the latest killings and kidnappings of soldiers. They cited military provocations as an excuse, but no details of these have been offered by the usually garrulous guerrillas.
So what do the Reds say they want? Nothing short of the release of all four hundred of their comrades still languishing in prison. Never mind if they offer nothing in exchange except for agreeing to resume a peace process, which, having done so before, they can also walk away from all over again.
I suspect that the real reason they’re walking away today is to ratchet up the pressure on government negotiators as the two parties now begin to negotiate a Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-Economic Reforms (CASER).
This will be the “heart and soul” of the peace process, and its most difficult part. This is the golden opportunity for the radical Left to enshrine their agenda after nearly a century of failing to do so, first through the Leninist way, then Mao’s.
After Duterte responded in kind to their walk away, the communists, echoed as usual by well-intentioned peaceniks, claimed it was still possible to “talk and fight.” Did they think they could pull off their bluff with the street-smart gun-lover in the Palace? Or do they think the people will really believe what they’re saying?
I understand that the ageing Party leaders in Utrecht really, really want to go home and spend their last years here. As a fellow senior, I totally sympathize with them. But now they’ll have to earn that privilege by proving that they do control their troops, not only at the negotiation table but also out in the field.
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Ideological intransigence comes in other colors as well—not just red, or yellow, but also of the green variety. I’m talking here about Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Gina Lopez, who’s never met an environmental cause she didn’t fall in love with.
Sec Gina’s recent decision to close down 23 mining companies for environmental violations predictably plays havoc with so many constituencies: the 1.2 million people whose livelihoods will reportedly be directly or indirectly affected; the billions of dollars of foreign exchange and tax revenues that will be lost; the loss of confidence that will ripple throughout the investor community at this latest display of on-again, off-again policy.
In fact, her very own review team—which already includes some well-known green militants—reportedly advised that some of the violations they found were in fact rectifiable and did not warrant permanent closure, perhaps just suspension.
The way she responded to reporters’ questions about this is pretty instructive about her ideological passion: “Don’t try to make things complicated. You cannot have any kind of mining operations in a watershed. Water is life.”
Well. Unfortunately for the good secretary, complications are a fact of life in her elevated position. Also, it is possible with modern technology to conduct ecologically safe mining operations in the unlikeliest places. It is mainly the small-scale mines, who can’t afford to use such technology, who thus end up being the most common violators.
As for water being life, nobody would argue with that. However, jobs and livelihoods are also indispensable for life.
I would like to think that Sec Gina, who belongs to an extremely business-savvy family, is simply being a good negotiator, i.e. staking out an extreme position at the start so the inevitable compromise in the middle will leave you closer to where you always wanted to be.
If that’s all it is, then kudos to her! But if not, and if she really believes what she’s saying, then that does no good for the country—already one of the most mineralized in the world (especially gold, copper and nickel) but still unable to fully benefit from such God-given wealth.
The good secretary should not forget the “NR” in her title. This makes her squarely responsible for maximizing the use of those natural resources. Neglecting the development of that wealth is no less an abandonment of responsibility than neglecting the environment.
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