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MANILA, Philippines – If there’s any lingering doubt that President Rodrigo Duterte is determined to make peace with communist rebels, the release of their top leaders on Friday, August 19, should put that to rest, the government’s chief peace adviser said.
Duterte “is serious and determined to find a peaceful solution” to Asia’s longest running insurgency, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza said in a statement Friday.
Benito Tiamzon, alleged chairman of Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and wife Wilma were the last senior guerrilla leaders to be temporarily released from detention on Friday for the duration of the peace negotiations between the Duterte administration and the communist-led National Democratic Front (NDF).
The Tiamzons will join at least 20 other rebels in a trip to Utrecht this weekend, where exiled CPP founder Jose Maria Sison lives, and then to Oslo, where both parties will be oepning formal talks Monday, August 22.
They were issued Philippine passports beginning this week. The Norway government, which is the third party facilitator in the talks, has also started issuing visas to delegates from both panels, Dureza said in a statement.
“We are looking forward to a fruitful but intense negotiations in Oslo,” Dureza said.
The Philippine military also said it “submits to the wise discretion of the court and support the magnanimous gesture of the President all in the quest for peace.”
Quick process
Duterte has given the government panel marching orders to finish the talks this year. He enjoys good ties with the Left and has appointed leftists to his Cabinet.
To fast-track a peace deal, both sides will hold simultaneous negotiations on 5 major agenda items through reciprocal working groups, according to Dureza.
The 5 are social and economic reforms; political and constitutional reforms; end of hostilities and disposition of forces; ceasefire, joint security and immunity; and release of political detainees.
More than 550 members of the CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, remain in jail, according to the government. The NDF is asking for all their release.
The government panel headed by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello will be arriving in Oslo on Sunday, August 21. The other members of the GPH panel are lawyers Rene Sarmiento, Antonio Arellano and Angela Librado-Trinidad. The fifth member, former Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza had already left ahead to confer with the NDF panel in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Bello will be going straight to Oslo from a visit to Saudi Arabia.
In Southern Mindanao, the NDF released two prisoners as a sign of goodwill for the peace process.
The released “prisoners of war” were identified as Arnold Ongachen and Michael Grande. – Rappler.com
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