Christmas ceasefire between government, communists urged

By Judy Gulane

BAGUIO CITY -- Cordillerans are urging the government and communist rebels to declare a Christmas ceasefire, decrying how the 46-year-old conflict has victimized the indigenous peoples (IPs) the most.

Local government officials, tribal elders, members of church organizations and the academe, senior citizens and youths in Lagawe, Ifugao and Baguio City signed a petition urging the government and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) to declare a ceasefire upon the onset of the Christmas season and to extend this up to the May 2016 election.

They also urged the candidates for president to commit to peace talks and to make the resolution of the communist insurgency one of the main goals of their administration.

They said they aspire for “true and lasting peace in the Cordillera and throughout the country,” noting that while the IPs in northern Luzon and Mindanao are affected differently by the insurgency, they are always caught between the clashes between the military and the New People’s Army (NPA).

Residents of Lagawe and Baguio were participants in peace forums organized by peace building non government organization International Alert in northern Luzon. The first forum was held in Bangued, Abra last Oct. 23; the second was in Lagawe on Nov. 16; and the third was in Baguio on Nov. 18.

While NPA activity in the Cordillera has been minimal since the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army broke away from the NPA and signed a peace agreement with the government in 1986, the NPA has gained new recruits from the youth, at the same time that private firms are planning energy projects in the region.

International Alert is also holding peace forums in eastern and southern Mindanao, a resource-rich corridor with many areas claimed by IPs as their ancestral domains, where NPA presence is very strong. Alert seeks to shore up public support for peace talks between the government and the communists, believing this is the best way forward for an armed conflict that has delayed development and taken so many lives, including those of hundreds of IPs.

Francisco J. Lara Jr., country manager of International Alert, said the communist insurgency, dragging on for far too long and exacting a heavy economic burden year after year, requires urgent public attention. The Moro rebellion, however, has been given more importance.

He warned that the use of Mindanao’s IPs to fight the war of the government and the NPA can be replicated in the Cordillera.

He noted that in eastern and southern Mindanao, most conflicts involving the NPA are in ancestral lands where there are mining firms or plantations.

The rebels reportedly force payments from these companies in the form of ‘revolutionary taxes.’ It is also in these regions where IPs have been recruited, either to fight for the military or to join the NPA.

“What is happening in Mindanao is essentially a proxy war between the military and the NPA using the IPs. Let us not wait for this happen in the Cordillera,” he said.

The Christmas ceasefire in December 2010 was the longest in recent years. Two months earlier, then newly elected Pres. Benigno S. C. Aquino III had decided to restart negotiations with the CPP-NPA.

Informal talks last year were aimed at resuming formal negotiations, even as the Aquino administration pushed for a Bangsamoro Basic Law in Congress. These, however, eventually collapsed.