IP, church groups push NDF-GPH peace talks

BAGUIO CITY— An indigenous people's group in the Cordillera and church members urged  the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Philippines (GPH) to resume the long stalled peace talks given recent turn of events that include the arrest of alleged top caders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and intensifying extrajudicial killings.

Abigail Anongos, secretary general of the Cordillera Peoples Alliance (CPA), an alliance of over 200 IP organizations in the region said the NDFP and GPH must resume the peace talks with the recent spate of killings of IP leaders and escalating human rights violations against activists.

Anongos pointed out that for the month of March alone, four members and leaders of the local chapters of CPA in Abra and Ifugao were brutally killed. She stressed that all of the victims were vilified by army troops as members or supporters of the New People's Army and were subjected to harassment and surveillance before they were killed.

She was referring to the massacre of father and sons Licuben, Eddie and Freddie Ligiw in Licuan-Baay, Abra on March 2 and the murder of William Bugatti in Kianga, Ifugao.

“The government and the NDFP must resume the formal peace talks to resolve the decades old civil war in the country to put an end to these brutal killings,” Anongos reiterated.

In a press statement, Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP), an ecumenical formation of church leaders in the country expressed sadness over the dimming prospect for the resumption of the formal peace negotiations between the NDFP and GPH pointing to the arrest of Benito and Wilma Tiamzon alleged by the Armed Forces of the Philippines to be the chair and secretary general respectively, of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

PEPP pointed out in their statement that the NDFP and GPH are now throwing accusations against each other on the said arrest with the NDFP claiming that the arrest of the couple was in violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the GPH claiming that the couple are not covered by the agreement. The church group hopes that the said arrest will not lead to the total breakdown of the formal talks.

“As it is, the talks have already been stalled too long. We call on both sides to go back to the negotiating table, and talk about the next steps that can be taken, to forge a path to a just and enduring peace,” the PEPP statement read.

PEPP further called on both panels to continue to work towards peace and to seriously find solutions to the root-causes of the ongoing armed conflict in the country. “The PEPP maintains that principled negotiations not the surrender of one party to the other, is what makes for genuine and enduring peace,” the statement further read.

The church group also called on the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG) to conduct conciliation work toward the resumption of the formal peace process. The Norwegian Government is the chosen facilitator of the said peace process.

The formal peace process restarted under the Benigno Aquino III administration in February 2011 but was stalled in June 2011 after the GPH accused the NDFP of imposing preconditions to the peace talks. The NDFP on the other hand accused the GPH of not fulfilling its commitment to release all detained NDFP consultants.