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The National Minorities and the National Democratic Revolution

in Mainstream 
By Iliya Makalipay

The national minorities — the Bangsamoro and the various groups of indigenous peoples — currently bear the brunt of the fascist attacks by the US-Duterte regime.

The Marawi City siege — a campaign of suppression against two disgruntled armed groups that used to belong to the Bangsamoro liberation movement — and its consequent displacement of 40,000 Maranaos is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.  Prior to the declaration of martial law on May 23, there were already at least 40,000 documented Moro evacuees affected by the regime’s “anti-terrorism” campaign.

On a nationwide scale, the US-Duterte regime pursues the nearly five-decade counterinsurgency war, now tagged as an “all-out war” through Oplan Kapayapaan, against the national democratic revolutionary movement which has included as targets the various national minorities.

From July 2016 to June 2017, at least 60,000 indigenous peoples have fallen victims of the counterinsurgency war. This is because the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) has tagged large sections of the national minorities as supporters and mass base of the New People’s Army (NPA) and considered them as “legitimate” targets of armed attacks.

Those targeted as “terrorists” in Mindanao are members and families of several armed groups that have emerged from the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which had negotiated and signed separate peace agreements with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) — the MNLF in 1998, the MILF in 2014.

These former members of the MNLF and MILF have rejected the peace process that has failed to address their fundamental demands for reforms urgently needed to realize their right to self-determination.  Even the leaderships of the MNLF and MILF feel aggrieved by the failure, mainly on the part of the reactionary government, to implement the signed peace agreements .

A year ago, Duterte spoke with umbrage about the long history of injustice committed against the Bangsamoro by the American imperialist invader-colonizers  and the successive neocolonial Philippine governments .  He swore to obtain redress for the injustices. But redress, through the implementation of the signed peace agreements however flawed and inadequate these may be, have yet to find fulfillment.

As regards the non-Moro national minorities, the fascist attacks on their communities combined with the schemes to seize their communal lands and natural resources for exploitation by  big foreign and domestic corporations threaten to displace them from their ancestral domains and destroy their indigenous cultures.

 

The NDFP program

Rectification of the national minorities’ exploitation and oppression cannot come from the oppressive and exploitative classes. Neither can it be expected from the reactionary state, which these ruling classes have controlled. Government after government has largely been indifferent to their interest and welfare, and in many instances has aided in perpetuating their national oppression and exploitation.

Recognizing this fact, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) has committed to undertake the task of rectification in close cooperation with the Bangsamoro, the Cordillera peoples, and other indigenous peoples in the country.  Certain provisions in its 12-point program, which takes off from the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) Program for a People’s Democratic Revolution (PPDR), uphold the right of the national minorities to self-determination and democracy.

 

Historical injustice and national oppression

By their formidable instinct for survival, the national minorities fought both the Spanish colonialists and the American imperialist plunderers.  They resisted the attempts of the colonizing powers to get them integrated into the “larger” society, fearing they would lose their ancestral lands and their distinct identities, cultures and traditions.

Their instinct has proved them right. The colonizers and their native subalterns and, as already mentioned, the succession of neocolonial governments continually tried to dispossess them of their ancestral lands and territories.  They were deceitfully enjoined to sacrifice for the “national interest” or in the name of the “majority Filipinos”.  Armed terror was used to subdue them. Divide-and-rule tactics was used to pit them against one another and against the majority of the Filipinos. Their traditional institutions were undermined.

Throughout history, the national minorities persisted in preserving their distinct cultures.  But, they became victims of cultural discrimination, Christian chauvinism, and Islamophobia that have been deeply inculcated into the minds of the majority Filipinos by the State through the use of mass media and the educational system.

Today, like the rest of the Filipino people, the national minorities are confronted with the problems brought about by US-imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. But in addition to these, national oppression perpetrated by the State, in collaboration with the landlords and comprador bourgeoisie, weighs down on them. The State has become the main violator of the rights of the national minorities to chart their own economic and cultural development and their own systems of governance.

The national minorities are among the most impoverished in the countryside. They are the last to receive social services from the government. Most of them die without seeing a doctor, and most of them die without having a day in school. Their organized efforts, aided by missionaries and other support groups, to build facilities for self-determining communities are targetted for fascist attacks by the State. These include their schools and literacy-numeracy programs, their agricultural cooperatives, and other economic endeavors aimed at lifting them from endemic poverty.

In defense of corporate interests, the State has bastardized the indigenous peoples’ social and political systems, for instance, by transforming the traditional community defense system into paramilitary groups to be used against them. These groups act as the AFP’s “force multipliers” and frontliners in its campaigns of suppression. Military officials are bestowed with the title of “datu” or chieftain to deodorize and legitimize their authoritarian presence in the ancestral lands and territories.

Attempts by the post-Marcos regimes to placate the Bangsamoro and indigenous peoples proved to be futile. The supposed regional autonomous governments granted to the Bangsamoro and the Cordillera peoples were led and mismanaged by the elites and corrupt bureaucrats. The same is true with the various peace and ceasefire agreements between the government and the MNLF and later with the MILF and the Cordillera Peoples Liberation Army (CPLA). All have failed to respond to the basic needs of the national minorities, to protect their rights to their ancestral lands and territories, and uphold their right to self-determination. These have only fueled more frustrations, anger, and armed resistance.

 

The right to self-determination

The right of the Bangsamoro, the Cordillera peoples, and other indigenous peoples to self-determination, from the NDFP’s viewpoint, means the right to “decide their own destiny; to free themselves from national exploitation, chauvinism and discrimination; to achieve democracy; to rule themselves and to pursue social progress in an all-round way and in accordance with their specific conditions.”  Under conditions of national oppression, this right extends to the right to secede.

All efforts must be exerted, therefore, to encourage the Bangsamoro to opt for the more valid and viable option of a genuine autonomous political rule within the framework of “equality of all peoples and nationalities” under the prospective People’s Democratic Government. Genuine autonomy is also guaranteed to the Cordillera peoples.

Self-governance within the People’s Democratic Government is key to genuine autonomy. Through this government structure, the full participation of the national minorities to decide on all matters affecting their lives is ensured. The autonomous regions shall be responsible for the concerns on the right to ancestral land, respect for tradition and culture, employment and economic opportunities, and how the economic development in the ancestral lands and territories can benefit the national minorities and hasten their social progress.

For the national minorities outside of the autonomous areas, they shall be accorded with meaningful and proportional representation in the organs of political power at various levels and in the National People’s Congress.

While encouraging active interaction among the diverse cultures in the country, the Bangsamoro, Cordillera, and other indigenous peoples’ social, religious, cultural, legal and customary laws shall be respected. Specifically for the Moro people, the “historical, social and religious ties with their Islamic brethren abroad shall likewise be respected.”

The NDFP believes that the national minorities, given their particular history and current situation, should get all the necessary support to enable them to “advance and progress with the rest of the nation.” Thus, its program explicitly provides that the central government of the new republic shall extend all help to the autonomous areas and peoples to develop according to their “decisions and specific conditions.”

Through the autonomous regions and the representation of the national minorities in all levels of governance, “equal political, economic and social rights as well as respect for their way of life shall be guaranteed.”

 

Advancing the revolution  

Among the NDFP’s 18 allied organizations are the revolutionary formations of national minorities such as the Moro Resistance and Liberation Organization (MRLO), the Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF) and the Revolutionary Organization of Lumad (ROL). Other national minorities are part of the CPP-NPA structures in the guerrilla  zones in various parts  the country.

These revolutionary organizations are waging armed resistance which is integrated in the national democratic struggle led by the Communist Party of the Philippines, New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP).

Outside of these revolutionary organizations, particularly among the Bangsamoro, the armed resistance is growing. Absent viable channels for redressing their historical grievances, extremism such as what the ISIS advances becomes an attractive alternative. But an end to national oppression cannot be achieved in that direction, neither can it be ended within the existing social order.

To this day, the national democratic revolution remains as the most viable road towards a sovereign, democratic and progressive Philippine society. Within it the national minorities  constitute a potent force in fighting the common enemy. Its advance and total victory, and the establishment of the People’s Democratic Republic remain the best guarantee for the national minorities to fully exercise their right to self-determination.

 

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Marawi Siege: Duterte and the US

in Mainstream 
by Vida Gracias

Given the copious bloodshed and massive destruction, the Marawi siege has more than amply shown that President Rodrigo Dutere has no compunction about running this country with an iron-fist.

No sooner had the Daulah Islamiyah (formed by the Maute group, Abu Sayyaf, Khalifa Philippines) staged its violent attack in Marawi on May 23 than President Duterte declared martial law and suspended the writ of habeas corpus not just in Marawi but in the entire island of Mindanao.  Sixty days were deemed not enough to contain the “invasion or rebellion”. With the concurrence of Congress in joint session, he extended martial law for another 150 days to last until the end of this year.  There’s a lurking fear that martial law would be extended nationwide.

But hark, the martial law declaration has also targetted “other armed groups” in Mindanao apart from the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups. “Dismantling” of the New People’s Army has specifically been added.  The military first denied this, but later events proved that the NPA is indeed its main target not just in Mindanao but in the other parts of the country.

Cries to lift martial law because of baseless claims — “Acts of terrorism are not necessarily equivalent to actual rebellion,” averred Congressman Edcel Lagman in his petition to the Supreme Court; “[Martial law] is unwarranted, unjustified and wholly out of proportion to the threat posed by the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups,” stated the Makabayan solons in another petition—fell on deaf ears.

Neither have the heart-rending appeals by over four hundred thousand evacuees—Stop the daily airstrikes (which have cost hundreds of lives and vast properties leveled to the ground)! Allow us to return home! — could move the military to accede to their demand.

President Duterte has repeatedly said that he would rely on the military in deciding to lift or extend martial law.  Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, once a Scout Ranger battalion commander and counterinsurgency expert, admitted recommending to the President the martial law declaration and its extension.  However, Duterte was quick to add: “I and I alone am responsible.”

 

Enter the US

Duterte’s dread of “terrorism” engulfing Mindanao made him completely dependent on the military and, consequently, on the United States. Increasingly his anti-US stance has seemed to melt down whenever he finds common ground on the “war on terror” with the American imperialists—much to the latter’s delight.

On many occasions, he dropped his blusters and acidic rhetoric against the US. He found himself saying “thank you” for the US advisers’ support in the aerial bombings and intelligence guidance for ground troop assaults against Daulah Islamiyah. Not raising hell, he acknowledged that the military proceeded to invite the Americans without his knowledge. He was also grateful that the US had lifted its ban to sell weapons and munitions to the AFP-PNP, and donated two surveillance planes to boost the government’s counter-terrorism efforts. He was silent when the US Embassy boasted that since 2004 it has delivered and programmed more than P7.4 billion worth of military equipment to enhance the AFP’s capabilities.

As matters stand, the war on terror is turning the President not only into an imperialist lackey but also into a fascist. His complete reliance on the military makes him putty in the hands of the US. Where the military gains control the US is not far behind.

Far from being nationalist or patriotic, the Philippine military has for long been incorrigibly pro-American. Duterte himseld has publicly affirmed this.  AFP courses and training are patterned after those of the US military, particularly its counterinsurgency programs.  Top guns of the AFP/PNP  get elite tutelage from US military schools. American advisers oversee combat and  non-combat training of Philippine troops.  The notorious Central Intelligence Agency or CIA also directly recruits agents from among Philippine military and civilian forces.

 

US and terrorism

The US has prided itself for leading the coalition of nations in the fight against terrorism, specially against militant Islam since 9/11.  But rather than put terrorism to rout, its war has fanned the flames of radical Islam into many corners of the globe. By enlarging the war, the US has made billions of profit in war materiel, oil concessions, and infrastructure contracts in such war ravaged countries as Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.

The US has a history of backing terrorist groups, including those in the Philippines’.  The website Global Research points to  Al Qaeda and ISIS  as “made-in-the-USA, an instrument of terror designed to divide and conquer the oil-rich Middle East and to counter Iran’s growing influence in the region.”  Likewise the  CIA gave birth to Osama Bin Laden as mujahedin in Afghanistan and allowed his organization to grow  during the 1980’s, extending even to far-away shores as in the Philippines.

In his book The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism, Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed wrote lengthily about the US-sponsored AFP-Abu Sayyaf-Al Qaeda nexus.  As early as 2000, even then Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. disclosed, in a speech in the Senate, the joint US-Philippine government role in the emergence and activities of Abu Sayyaf. Yet no investigation was made.  He said: “My information is that the Abu Sayyaf partisans were given military intelligence services, IDs, safe-houses, safe-conduct passes, firearms, cell phones and various sorts of financial support.”  He also said that Philippine military officers involved held very high posts.

As mayor of Davao City, Duterte himself had claimed that the killing of suspected-terrorist Marwan was a CIA operation that led to the killing of 44 Special Action Forces, including MILF fighters too, in Mamasapano.

No fact has yet been established but the botched operation to bag Isnilon Hapilon, a senior leader of the Abu Sayyaf, that led to the Marawi siege and the declaration of martial law could be a secret plan hatched by the Americans.  Hapilon, like Marwan, has a $5 million bounty offered by the US government.

A purely military solution to the Marawi crisis, and to the country’s Left and Moro insurgencies, certainly gives the US the upperhand in deciding the course of the Duterte presidency. The “war on terror” has become a convenient excuse for the US to intervene in the internal affairs of countries and, in this case, gain further military and economic foothold in the Philippines.

Illustration from PRWC Info

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More Military Men in the US-Duterte Regime

in Countercurrent 
by Leon Castro

The US-Duterte regime may be the most militarized bureaucracy in the country’s history.

Among all the presidents since the 1986 ouster of the Marcos dictatorship, Rodrigo Duterte has appointed the most number of former soldiers and police officers to top and key positions in his government — a move in line with its unraveling character as a repressive and tyrannical regime. Not even former chief martial law implementer and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) chief Fidel Ramos had as many ex-military and police officers at any given time in his six-year term as president.

Duterte initially tried to mask his militarist nature by bandying his past links with the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) in his youth and with the New People’s Army (NPA)in Davao City and elsewhere in Mindanao when he was mayor.  In his first year as president, however, he populated his regime with ex-AFP and Philippine National Police brass, many of whom had been assigned in Davao and served during his murderous reign in that southern city.

As mayor Duterte, the police, the military and the notorious paramilitary group Alsa Masa were jointly accused by human rights groups to be responsible for the more than a thousand extrajudicial killings in Davao City. (He was later repeatedly accused of having had a hand in the killing of his erstwhile friend, Alsa Masa leader Juan Porras “Jun” Pala.)

What happened in Davao City then is ominously similar to what is now happening throughout the country, with Duterte’s so-called war on drugs, tagged as Oplan Double Barrel /Tokhang and the counterinsurgency program Oplan Kapayapaan.

To date, Duterte has 60 former military and police officers in powerful and juicy posts across the bureaucracy.  And he will appoint current AFP chief Eduardo Año, he has said, as secretary of interior and local government once the latter retires in October. By surrounding himself with proven military and police bloodhounds, Duterte is also protecting himself from other rightist political cliques such as the putschist Magdalo group led by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV.

In less than a year and a half, the US-Duterte regime has completely unraveled as a tyrannical militarist regime. On May 10 he facetiously said he was ready to form a junta with the appointment of retired former AFP chief Gen. Roy Cimatu to replace the maverick Gina Lopez as environment and natural resources secretary.

 

Peace saboteurs

Duterte’s security cluster appointees showed no qualms in admitting they had deliberately sabotaged the GRP-NDFP formal peace negotiations.  Defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana, national security adviser Gen. Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and the notorious human rights violator, AFP chief Eduardo Año, have been responsible for the current “total-war” policy against the NPA as well as the ongoing militarization of indigenous and peasant communities through Oplan Kapayapaan.

Lorenzana, Esperon and Año directly contravened efforts to advance the peace process with the NDFP by ordering its troops to attack NPA camps and civilian communities during the six-month unilateral ceasefire from August 2016 to February 2017. They also have caused the killing, abduction, and illegal arrest of activists, most notably peasant leaders, and indigenous peoples.

Last January 20, when the NDFP and the GRP were negotiating in Rome on free land distribution to peasants, 39th IBPA troopers attacked a NPA camp in Makilala, North Cotabato that nearly succeeded in derailing the talks pronto.

In a press briefing, NDFP negotiating panel chairperson Fidel Agcaoili said there appeared to be a deliberate and systematic sabotage of the ongoing formal peace talks in that city. “What is happening is similar to what happened in 2005 to 2006 where many activists were killed, presided by the very same people (Esperon and Año),” Agcaoili said.

Before capitalists in Makati last August 24, Lorenzana admitted it was he who convinced President Duterte to stop peace negotiations with the NDFP. He said he was against any peace process “that is clearly stacked against the government and favorable only to the CPP-NPA-NDF.” The Marcosian martial law relic added that the terms of the Comprehensive Agreement for Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) being discussed by the NDFP and GRP peace panels were “completely unacceptable.”

Lorenzana, Esperon and Año also staged the failed attempt to arrest Abu Sayyaf leader Isnilon Hapilon last May 23 in Marawi City.  When the operation failed, they persuaded Duterte to declare martial law over the entire Mindanao.  Martial law spawned the greatest military and humanitarian disaster in his year-old government, with nearly half-a-million internally displaced persons.  Without provocation Lorenzana declared that the NPA was among the targets of the martial law declaration.  Along with Esperon and Ano, he plotted the cancellation of the scheduled fifth round of the NDFP-GRP talks by pressuring the GRP negotiators to insist that the CPP recall its defensive order to step up military offensives against the rampaging AFP troops.

 

Human rights violators

Other recent Duterte appointments were equally notorious human rights violators as AFP officers.

New national irrigation administrator Ricardo Visaya was the main implementer, as AFP chief, of the Aquino regime’s Oplan Bayanihan that resulted in the extrajudicial killing of many peasants and indigenous peoples. He was army ground commander during the November 2004 Hacienda Luisita Massacre in Tarlac, likewise the commander of troops in Central Luzon and Metro Manila involved in rights violations during Arroyo’s reign of terror under the counterinsurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya. Among his known victims in Central Luzon were Raymond and Reynaldo Manalo, two farmers who were abducted and tortured. In Metro Manila, Visaya’s stint was marked by military encampments in urban poor communities in 2006-2007, in time for the 2007 elections.

Former AFP chief Emmanuel Bautista, Duterte’s current executive director on security, justice and peace cluster, was the self-proclaimed brains behind the Aquino regime’s Oplan Bayanihan.  Human rights group Karapatan recorded 229 victims of extrajudicial killings, 26 enforced disappearances, 700 illegally arrested and detained, and over 46,000 victims of forced evacuations under the insidious counterinsurgency plan.

Presumptive interior and local government secretary and current AFP chief Año was accused of masterminding the abduction and disappearance of activist Jonas Burgos on April 28, 2007. Año was also said to be responsible for the killing spree against the Lumad and the illegal arrest and filing of trumped-up charges against activists, among other atrocities, when he was the commanding officer of the Philippine Army’s 10th Infantry Division in Mindanao.

Meanwhile, Cimatu, current environment and natural resources secretary, headed the AFP Southern Command when civilians who came to be known as the “Basilan 72” were arrested based on wrongful accusations that they were Abu Sayyaf members. During his brief stint as AFP chief (May to September 2002), Cimatu led the implementation of the bloody counterinsurgency program Oplan Bantay Laya. He was also accused of accumulating ill-gotten wealth from the conversion of military funds during the Gloria Arroyo regime, for which the Department of Justice filed plunder cases against him and other high-ranking AFP officials in 2011. The case, though later dismissed, demonstrated how rampant was corruption within the military, implicating no less than its top officers.

Many other former AFP and PNP officers who are now high-ranking officials of the Duterte government faced complaints of human rights violations during their military and police careers.

 

Juicy civilian positions

A February 24 to March 6, 2011 Pulse Asia survey showed that 48.9 percent of Filipinos believed that the military was the most corrupt government agency in the country. The survey was conducted at the height of the congressional hearings on the military’s “pasalubong” and “pabaon” controversy involving the former AFP comptroller, retired Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia, and the alleged corruption involving former high-ranking military officials, per the testimonies of former AFP budget officer, retired Lt. Col. George Rabusa, and former state auditor Heidi Mendoza.

In November that year, Newsbreak journalists Glenda Gloria, Aries Rufo, and Gemma Bagayaua-Mendoza published the book The Enemy Within that narrated massive corruption in the military, such as the fraudulent conversion of its budget to allow for tens of millions of pesos to be given as gifts to  both incoming (pasalubong) and outgoing top commanders (pabaon).  AFP corruption is still believed to be rampant from top to bottom to this day.  Duterte’s appointment of an inordinate number of ex-military officers to juicy directorships and trusteeships in Government-Owned and Controlled-Corporations (GOCCs) can only be likened to letting insatiable foxes guard the chicken coop.

Apologists claim former military and police officers have the competencies to be managers and policy directors of the government’s money-making agencies.  Thus, Duterte named former coup plotter Nicanor Faeldon to the Bureau of Customs commissioner, and other ex-military officers as directors and trustees of the Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC), PNOC-Exploration Corp., Government Service Insurance System, Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA), Phillippine Sugar Corp. and others. However, there is no shortage of qualified civilian experts who can be appointed to these clearly civilian offices.

 

Appointee Designation Agency
Roberto Lastimoso chair Philippine National Railways
Miguel dela Cruz Abaya director Development Bank of the Philippines
Delfin Lorenzana secretary Department of National Defense (DND)
Francisco Villaroman director Clark Development Corp. (CDC)
Alex Monteagudo director general National Intelligence Coordination Agency
Hermogenes Esperon Jr. director general National Security Council (NSC)
Roy Cimatu secretary Department of Environment and Natural Resources
Benjamin Defensor director CDC
Ricardo David undersecretary DND
Emmanuel Bautista executive director Office of the Executive Director on Security, Justice and Peace Cluster
Ricardo Visaya administrator National Irrigation Administration
Jason Aquino administrator National Food Authority
Nicanor Faeldon commissioner Bureau of Customs
Danilo Lim chair Metropolitan Manila Development Authority
Eduardo “Red” Kapunan ambassador to Myanmar
Catalino Cuy officer in charge and undersecretary for peace and order Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG)
Nestor Quinsay Jr. assistant secretary DILG
Arthur Tabaquero undersecretary Presidential Adviser on Military Affairs
Rufino Lopez deputy director general NSC
Cardozo Luna undersecretary DND
Eduardo del Rosario undersecretary for civil, veterans and retiree affairs DND
Raymundo Elefante — undersecretary for finance and materiel DND
Cesar Yano undersecretary for defense operations DND
Ricardo Jalad Administrator and executive director, respectively Office of Civil Defense (OCD) and National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council
Marciano Paynor Jr. undersecretary Office of the President (OP)
Ernesto Carolina administrator Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO)
Raul Caballes deputy administrator PVAO
Rodolfo Demosthenes Santillan deputy administrator for operations OCD
Jonathan Martir government arsenal director DND
Anselmo Simeon Pinili special envoy on transnational crime OP
Allan Guisihan executive director Philippine Center on Transnational Crime
Dickson Hermoso assistant secretary for peace and security affairs Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process
Edgar Galvante assistant secretary Land Transportation Office
Isidro Lapeña director general Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA)
Jesus Fajardo deputy director general for administration PDEA
Jaime Morente commissioner Bureau of Immigration
Eduardo Gongona national director Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources
Jose Jorge Corpuz chair Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO)
Alexander Balutan general manager PCSO
Reynaldo Berroya administrator Light Rail Transit Authority
Rodolfo J. Garcia general manager Metro Rail Transit 3
Reuben Lista president and CEO Philippine National Oil Co. (PNOC)
Oscar Rabena director PNOC-Exploration Corp.
Bruce Concepcion director PNOC
Adolf Borje director PNOC
Alan Luga trustee Government Service Insurance System
Ferdinand Golez director Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA)
Romeo Poquiz director BCDA
Raul Urgello director Philippine Sugar Corp.
Abraham Bagasin director John Hay Management Corp. (JHMC)
Reynald Mapagu director North Luzon Railway Corp.
Michael Mellijor Tulen director Philippine National Railways
Roberto Estioko president National Defense College of the Philippines (NDCP)
Rolando Jungco executive vice president NDCP
Jessie Cardona technical assistant Office of the Executive Secretary-AntiTerrorism Council-Program Management Center
Jim Sydiongco director general Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP)
Manuel Antonio Tamayo deputy director general CAAP
Eduardo Davalan director JHMC
Eduardo Año incoming secretary DILG
Eduardo del Rosario head Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC)

 

US stooges

It is no secret the AFP implements US-designed counterinsurgency plans such as Oplan Bantay Laya I and II, Oplan Bayanihan and the current Oplan Kapayapaan.  In fact, the 2006 US Quadrennial Defense Review called the AFP its “surrogate army”, a long-term junior partner of the US Armed Forces. Among the major influences in the development of US counterinsurgency strategy were the Philippine-American War of 1901 and the Huk pacification campaign during the 1950s.

Illustration from Cartoons and Philippine Politics

US’s counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines are most rabidly implemented by high ranking officers who are trained by the US Armed Forces in its School of the Americas in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. They are taught how to wage low-intensity conflicts that aim to drain the waters where the fish swim. This usually means attacking civilian communities perceived to be supportive of the NPA. In turn, this leads to countless human rights violations.

Top AFP generals, many of whom are now posing as civil servants in the US-Duterte regime are experts in the US counterinsurgency “whole-of-nation” concept. The program, a US Army magazine says, is the approach adopted for the AFP’s Internal and Security Plan with the “advice and assistance of the Joint Special Operations Task Force (of the US Armed Forces).”

“Although authored by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the plan encompasses a whole-of-nation approach, with a focus on coordinating all efforts under the broad direction of a national internal-security strategy,” explains the article, written by a Col. Fran Beaudette of the Special Warfare Magazine published in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Based on assessments of who among them are able to carry out US-designed and directed counterinsurgency plans, officers are promoted to generals.

Duterte feigned ignorance when US military presence was revealed immediately after the Marawi crisis broke out last May. In a press conference in Cagayan de Oro last June 11, Duterte acknowledged it was the defense department that decided to seek help from the US armed forces. “I am not aware of that until they arrived. When I declared martial law, I gave the power to the defense department,” he said,  gesturing at defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana then standing beside him. He had tapped Lorenzana as martial law administrator shortly after he declared martial law in the entire Mindanao  on May 23, 2017.

Despite his rhetorics, it has become clear that Duterte is a US puppet who wreaks havoc on the Filipino people not only through the AFP but also through the former AFP officers in the civilian bureaucracy. “All of them, most of them, nag-schooling sa America. So, talaga, ang siyentimiyento nito, pro-American. Pro-American talaga ang mga sundalo natin. That I cannot deny,” Duterte said. (All of them, most of them, were schooled in America. So, really, their sentiment is pro-American. Our soldiers are pro-American. That I cannot deny.)

Even in their current civilian capacities, these former generals are still known to champion US military interests in the Philippines. Lorenzana, Esperon and Año in fact were instrumental in pushing the servile Congress to vote overwhelmingly to extend martial law in Mindanao by five more months until the end of this year.

The true character of Duterte’s regime is now on open display with human rights violators, putschists, US-trained wardogs, and peace saboteurs teeming in his government.

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Peace Talks in Duterte’s First Year: Flagging Political Will and Consistency

in Mainstream 
by Angel Balen

As he began his six-year term in July 2016, President Rodrigo R. Duterte set off a momentum for change by taking bold, dramatic moves and making definitive pronouncements in pursuance of his campaign cry, “Change is coming!”

However, towards the latter part of his first year in power the momentum for change has faltered.  He has tended more and more to backslide towards the Right.  Dragged and rendered as casualty in that flow and ebb were the peace talks of the Government of the Republic of the Philippines-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (GRP-NDFP), which Duterte had vowed to resume, and to complete and begin implementing the substantive agreements (on social, economic and political reforms) within his term.

The formal negotiations resumed on August 22 in an atmosphere of amity and euphoria: the new president had caused the release of 21 NDFP consultants and staff, enabling them to participate in the talks. As regards the other 400 political prisoners, he had offered (in May before he took office)  to issue an amnesty proclamation to expedite their release.

The two parties reaffirmed the 12 previously signed agreements (from 1992 to 2004) and “resolved to conduct formal talks and consultations in accordance with said agreements” (Joint Statement, August  26, 2016).  They reconstituted the list of NDFP consultants given safety and immunity guarantees under the JASIG (Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees) and completed the requisite guidelines to implement the CARHRIHL (Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law).

Furthermore, they have agreed to accelerate the pace of the negotiations, setting up the necessary mechanisms and procedures, and made significant gains in three successive rounds of formal negotiations until the end of January 2017.  Then something happened that rudely interrupted the good things going on so well, as acknowledged by both negotiating panels.

“Moving the Peace Talks Forward,” the lead article of Liberation, January-March issue, pointed out the main factor that has since impeded the relatively smooth flow of the peace negotiations.  “War hawks in the administration, led by pro-US defense and military officials,” the article said, “soon began undermining the strides made in three rounds of formal peace talks in the first six months of the new government.”

The war hawks avidly exploited to their advantage an initiative by President Duterte (which they had probably suggested) that has turned into a problematic and troublesome element in the peace talks: his declaration on August 21 of an indefinite unilateral ceasefire.

In May 2016, when as president-elect he met with then NDFP emissary Fidel Agcaoili and committed to resume the long-suspended peace talks, Duterte did not at all speak of a ceasefire. Neither was a ceasefire declaration discussed during the June preliminary bilateral talks between his emissaries and the NDFP negotiating panel held in Oslo, Norway.  But when he delivered his first state-of-the-nation address in July, he announced a unilateral ceasefire, which he hastily withdrew because the NDFP did not immediately reciprocate with a similar ceasefire declaration.  It was explained to him later that the NDFP had waited for details on how the ceasefire would be implemented before issuing its reciprocal unilateral ceasefire declaration.

A day before the formal resumption of the peace talks, Duterte again declared an indefinite unilateral ceasefire. This time the Communist Party of the Philippines  (CPP) and the NDFP responded by declaring their reciprocal indefinite unilateral ceasefire.

 

Devious plan

Absent mutually-agreed guidelines for implementing the reciprocal unilateral ceasefires, the war hawks moved fast to carry out their devious plan:  aggressively they pushed Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP )counterinsurgency operations, misrepresented as assistance to government “peace and development” programs, in hinterland and rural communities under the control or influence of the CPP and the New People’s Army (NPA).  Over five months, AFP intruded into and occupied 500 barangays nationwide, spurring complaints from the affected communities that the state security forces subjected them to threats, harassments, and other forms of abuses and human rights violations. The violations have been duly documented by the human rights monitoring organization, Karapatan (whose Secretary General is an independent observer in the Joint Monitoring Committee [JMC] under the CARHRIHL), and submitted to the NDFP panel.

Through those five months, the ceasefire held as the NPA consistently evaded engaging the intruding state forces in combat, thus evincing sincere adherence to its own unilateral ceasefire declaration. However, the CPP raised to the NDFP panel its complaints against the AFP’s persistent deceitful violations of the ceasefire.  On two occasions — Nov. 4, 2016 and Jan. 4, 2017 — the NDFP panel handed over the documented complaints to the GRP panel.

Having observed no change in the AFP’s actions, the CPP served notice to the NDFP panel that the situation on the ground was becoming untenable, and that soon it would withdraw its ceasefire declaration.  During the third round of formal talks (held in Rome in late January), the NDFP panel relayed that notice to its government counterpart, warning that the AFP violations were already endangering the peace talks.  On February 1, 2017, the CPP announced its ceasefire withdrawal.

Although he was apprised by the NDFP panel of the reason for the withdrawal, President Duterte angrily reacted to the maliciously distorted information fed to him by the war hawks about the NPA allegedly violating its own ceasefire. Peremptorily he cancelled the peace talks and in his characteristic blustering called the NPA “terrorists”.  Picking up from there, his defense secretary declared an “all-out war” against the NPA, egregiously tagging the NPA as “terrorists no different from the Abu Sayyaf”.

 

Back-channel talks

Within three weeks Duterte walked back on his cancellation of the peace talks, taking recourse in back-channel talks towards continuing the formal negotiations.  Perplexingly, he didn’t rescind the Defense Department’s all-out war declaration.  He even egged on the AFP and Philippine National Police (PNP) to use all their assets and “flatten the hills” (the presumed redoubts of the NPA) through aerial bombings and artillery bombardments.

That was not all he failed or opted not to do before the fourth round of negotiations began in April.  During the March 11 back-channel talks, the two parties agreed that upon resuming the cancelled negotiations each side would issue simultaneous and reciprocal unilateral ceasefire declarations. But according to his defense secretary, Duterte didn’t order the issuance of the GRP declaration.  Hence the NPA had no choice but to engage in self-defense and counter-offensives.

Thus the all-out war has continued to this day. And aerial bombings plus ground artillery barrages have become a feature of the state counterinsurgency forces’ mode of combat. This has caused recurrent large-scale evacuations of rural communities targeted by the bombings in Mindanao and other parts of the country. (Daily air bombings have also punctuated the AFP operations against the Maute group in Marawi City for more than three months now.)

We know who are the war hawks and main peace saboteurs:  Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo Ano, and other government officials in the Duterte Cabinet so-called security cluster. They have sustained black propaganda, aimed at discrediting the Red Fighters, casting doubt on the sincerity of the revolutionary forces in the peace negotiations, and impugning the credentials of the NDFP panel.

 

Fourth round of talks

The cabinet security cluster’s intervention delayed for two days the opening ceremonies of the fourth round of negotiations, held in The Netherlands. There being no ceasefire in place, they pressed the GRP panel to insist on placing in the agenda the negotiation and signing of a prolonged indefinite bilateral or joint ceasefire agreement ahead of the scheduled negotiations on a Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER). The NDFP panel rejected the proposal, saying it violates the previously signed agreements both panels had reaffirmed and agreed to comply with, foremost the four-point agenda set by The Hague Joint Declaration (1992), and the Joint Agreement on the Sequence, Formation and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees (1995).

Nonetheless, the fourth round of negotiations concluded with positive results.

The two panels skirted the threatening impasse by crafting and signing an Agreement on an Interim Joint Ceasefire, which provides that the guidelines and ground rules for implementation will be worked on by the panels’ respective ceasefire committees “in-between formal talks”.  No ceasefire can take effect until after the guidelines and implementing rules have been finalized, signed by the panels and approved by the principals of both parties.

Meantime, the reciprocal working committees on the CASER firmed up their agreement that distribution of land to landless farmers and farm workers for free is “the basic principle of agrarian reform”. (Agreement in principle on this matter was arrived at in the third round of talks.)

For the records, presidential peace adviser Jesus G. Dureza hailed the fourth round as “the farthest point we have already achieved in our negotiations with the CPP-NPA-NDF”.  And he stated that in his formal statement at the opening ceremonies.

But the cabinet security cluster didn’t find the agreement on an interim ceasefire suitable to them. At the scheduled fifth round of negotiations in May, they pressed on with their original proposal that the NDFP definitively had rejected.  Not only that.  They demanded that the CPP recall its order to the NPA for intensified tactical offensives against state security forces to manifest its opposition to Duterte’s May 23 declaration of martial law and suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in the whole of Mindanao — which targeted the “dismantling” of the NPA.

 

GRP pulls out

Buckling to such pressure, the GRP panel announced it would not participate in the fifth round. That was a bad move—made worse by Duterte’s warning the NDFP consultants then in The Netherlands not to return to Manila as he would have them incarcerated. For a number of days both the GRP and NDFP delegations were stuck at the hotel venue, holding ad-hoc unilateral meetings, and taking walks in between free meals courtesy of the Royal Norwegian Government. Third party facilitator Ambassador Elisabeth Slattum tried, in vain, various means to get the two panels, or the reciprocal working committees, to sit down together even informally and discuss matters of mutual concern.

Of course, the peace saboteurs succeeded in obstructing the progress of the negotiations on the CASER because President Duterte permitted their scheming. He wanted to assuage the war hawks bent on wangling a prolonged bilateral ceasefire as a means to stanch the sustained growth in strength of the revolutionary forces, dreaming of pushing the latter ultimately into capitulation and pacification, as has happened in the cases of many peace agreements in other parts of the world.

The NDFP has made it clear it’s fully aware of the war hawks’ capitulation-pacification trap and does not wish to fall into it. Besides, putting in place a prolonged and indefinite ceasefire agreement before there are substantive agreements on social, economic, political and constitutional reforms, it emphasizes, will betray the trust of the oppressed and exploited masses, the intended prime beneficiaries of such reforms.

Similarly, Duterte wanted to placate the neoliberal clique composing his economic managers and the pro-imperialists in various government offices. They make no bones about their opposition to the social and economic reforms that are moving towards adoption in the peace negotiations—particularly the basic concepts and ramifications of a genuine agrarian reform program and rural development (ARRD) and of national industrialization and economic development (NIED).

Duterte made the hollow excuse that he has to consult many advisers, particularly the military — which he has been pampering with financial and other incentives. He claimed that he has no control on everything within his vast sphere of authority.   Thus he has become mum on his publicly-repeated commitment to accelerate and complete the peace negotiations on substantive reforms. Worse, he has reneged on his offer of amnesty for the 400 political prisoners identified in a list submitted by the NDFP panel.

Ironically, the President hems and haws just as the talks are beginning to produce results that open up opportunities for his “government of change” and the NDFP to work together in improving the dire living conditions of the people, particularly of the majority poor, which he has vowed to ameliorate.

In July, President Duterte had cancelled the back-channel talks between the two panel heads and their working teams on what should be in the agenda of the fifth round of formal negotiations, tentatively set in the latter part of August.

 

No mood for talks

In a long adlib portion of his second state-of-the-nation address, Duterte said he was no longer in the mood to talk peace with the Left.  He let out his recrimination over the NPA’s continued attacks on government forces and installations after he had declared martial law in Mindanao. Exaggerating an incident in Arakan, North Cotabato on July 20, he publicly claims the NPA planned to ambush him in one of his land travels through the region. “How can we talk when you’re ambushing me!” he blustered.

DILG Secretary Eduardo Año

Of course, there was no such plan to ambush the President.  What actually happened was that the NPA had set up a checkpoint in Arakan to deliver a message: that under martial law, the NPA can set a checkpoint in an area it chooses along the highway, as it has been doing for years.

Coincidentally, two unmarked vehicles that the sentries had stopped to check on turned out to belong to the Presidential Security Group. When the driver of the first car sensed the odd situation, he sped through the checkpoint. In quick reaction, the Red fighters shot its rear wheels stopping the vehicle.  The second car also sped past the checkpoint.  Although it managed to get away, it met with a volley of gunfire that wounded four of the men on board.  After a while, the NPA unit left the area without harming the men who locked themselves inside the stalled PSG vehicle.

 

Will the peace talks continue?  

DND Secretary Delfin Lorenzana

Thus far the GRP has not made a formal written notification to the NDFP terminating the JASIG, which in effect would also terminate the peace talks.  The protocol calls for the NDFP to acknowledge the notice of termination, which would take effect 30 days after the acknowledgment.

Meantime, all the NDFP consultants “stranded” in The Netherlands to evade arrest have safely returned to the Philippines. However, the gung-ho solicitor general (the government’s chief lawyer) has filed a court petition calling for the cancellation of their bail to enable the police to re-arrest them. Thus far no further legal action has been announced.

Just before the solgen’s precipitate move, another small window was opened.  Ten of 19 convicted political prisoners were freed

NSC Director General Hermogenes Esperon, Jr.

via conditional presidential pardon, including one of three NDFP consultants. The 19 had been convicted of trumped-up common crime charges and were already recommended for conditional pardon.  Peace advocates are pushing for the release of more political prisoners to improve the chances of continuing the peace talks.

During the waiting period, bilateral discussions on the CASER have continued in Manila. The bilateral teams formed to help reconcile contentious provisions in the GRP and the NDFP drafts of the CASER recently held a three-day working meeting.  The meeting has achieved consensus on many aspects of agrarian reform and rural development (ARRD), including the scope and coverage, disposition of land, and modes of compensation to landowners. They are expected to submit recommendations to their respective reciprocal working committees, which can help accelerate the formal negotiations on the CASER.

As matters stand, it’s obvious that the interruptions of the peace negotiations caused by the ceasefire imbroglio since February have put in jeopardy the mutually-targeted completion of the CASER negotiations before the end of 2017. At best, in the next formal negotiation rounds the panels can target the completion of a partial agreement on agrarian reform and rural development.

But that can happen only if the GRP relents on pushing ahead negotiations on a prolonged bilateral or joint ceasefire.

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