AUTHOR’S REMARKS AT THE CPCS BOOK LAUNCHING OF HOW DO YOU SOLVE A PROBLEM LIKE THE GPH-NDFP PEACE PROCESS?
Mayong Buntag! That’s how the morning is greeted in Davao City, the new capital of the Philippines. Marhay na aga! That’s the corresponding greeting in Naga City, the second capital.
Before anything else, I wish to thank Emma and the CPCS for their faith in me by publishing this book despite the seven articles compiled here all being written during and about the very problematic GPH-NDFP peace process under the just retired Aquino administration starting in 2010. Even the Introduction was written on March 29, 2016, the 47th Anniversary of the NPA (also my 40th wedding anniversary) and during the last election campaign period. Not only is there a new presidential administration, which the CPP refers to as the “Duterte regime” (mind you, not the “U.S.-Duterte regime”). But the newly-elected President Rodrigo Duterte, even before assuming office, has already become a game-changer for the peace process, among other fronts of governance in this country. Now, the fast-moving GPH-NDFP peace process does not seem to be too much of a problem any more. And so, I am tempted to say that my book has become irrelevant, except for its cover. To many, the answer to our title or theme of “How do you solve a problem like the GPH-NDFP peace process?” is obvious in the cover photo. Agree or disagree? Anyway, if only for that nice cover photo captured from the then presumptive President’s facebook account, you should have a copy of this book.
But there is something further in that cover that is touched to some extent in the book. I am referring to its sub-title “Paradigm Shifts for 2016 and Beyond,” particularly the need for paradigm shifts to ultimately or decisively solve the problem of a long stalemated or going-around-in-circles GPH-NDFP peace negotiations – of this protracted peace process almost as long as the protracted people’s war. If you will allow me to draw a little from my recent judicial training in mediation, a “paradigm shift” is one important factor for successful alternative dispute resolution. It is defined as “a change in perception or way of thinking giving us new dimensions and understanding, bringing us to new ways of thinking, often requiring adjustments to new rules or methods.” Paradigm shifts are often necessary to achieve a compromise settlement in court cases – AND in a negotiated political settlement via peace processes. According to the CPP, in a statement on the positive outcome of the last Oslo talks, “The attitude of the incoming Duterte regime toward peace negotiations with the NDFP is a big departure from that of the Aquino and Arroyo regimes. Under the previous two regimes, peace negotiations were regarded mainly as a psywar operation that was a secondary to and served only the counter-revolutionary war of suppression.” So, it also has to be asked, how about on the part of the NDFP or the CPP, are peace negotiations to be no longer secondary or tertiary to and serving only the protracted people’s war?
Stated otherwise, the question is whether both the GPH under Duterte and the NDFP have made a strategic decision to go for a peace strategy, with the primacy of the peace process as the mode for resolving the armed conflict. Both parties have to engage in an honest-to-goodness peace process as the conflict-resolution strategy. It will not work if even just one side engages in peace negotiations as tactics under a war strategy. Of course, it is fair enough for each side to test the waters, to test the sincerity of the other side and even test the limits – the latter the NDFP appears appears to be purposively doing at an accelerated rate. So, as they say, the jury may still be out on whether or not the NDFP or the CPP has made that strategic decision to go for a fair enough, if not fully just, peace — even as the Duterte administration by its early policy announcements and actual moves has clearly shown its political will for that strategic direction as a key component of its promised “change is coming,” including no less than charter change for federalism as also a key measure for the Mindanao peace process. Of course, the Duterte administration is one thing, the Philippine ruling class and ruling system is another thing. As Rey Casambre of the Philippine Peace Center put it when writing on the significance of the last Oslo talks, “Even assuming there is a healthy reserve of mutual trust, goodwill and understanding, the Parties would have to contend, perhaps more than with each other, with the powerful forces and influences of reaction that oppose any meaningful or substantial reform in the system. These include the big landlords and big comprador-bourgeoisie, the big bureaucrat-capitalists under the baton of U.S. imperialism and other foreign capital.” (with due respect to the U.S. Embassy representative here, I am only quoting Mr. Casambre)
This will be tested come the time for the actual nitty-gritty of negotiations for the completion of the substantive agenda on socio-economic reforms and on politico-constitutional reforms. The coming Oslo meeting’s preliminary agenda items of past agreements affirmation, accelerated negotiation process development, safety and immunity guarantees reconstitution, amnesty for release of detained political prisoners, and interim ceasefire mode may be the easiest part of the Duterte peace process with the NDFP. Its Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria “Joma” Sison has told a Davao media forum that the plan to accelerate the peace negotiations is meant “to measure the seriousness of the Duterte government to make substantive progress…” And so what would be the NDFP’s measure of substantive reforms? Would it be its well-propagated 12-point program for a national-democratic society with a socialist perspective? Would something less than that be “satisfactory” or acceptable to the NDFP? Would effectively ending the “70-year semi-colonial and semi-feudal system” be the “measure” of “substantive progress”? How about solving Joma’s “three basic problems” of “U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism”? Is this to be the “measure”? And how about “addressing the roots of the armed conflict”? How is that to be “measured”? Would it be a fair standard for peace process purposes? What if the Duterte government somehow does not “measure” up to the NDFP standard of “substantive progress”?
Take the NDFP program’s key socio-economic reform area of land reform which has its minimum and maximum programs. Forgive again the mediation terminology but, in the zone of potential agreement (ZOPA), or the bargaining and settlement range between the worst and best alternatives to a negotiated agreement, what extent of GPH partial adoption of that revolutionary land reform program would be “satisfactory” or acceptable to the NDFP? How is this to play out now that Duterte’s Secretary of Agrarian Reform, thus an alter ego no less of the President under the presidential system, is one of several NDFP-nominated persons in the Duterte cabinet? Which brings up the tricky question, is the NDFP part of a de facto coalition government of President Duterte? If so, at least to some extent, what do we make out of the NDFP’s negotiating with a government that it is indirectly part of? I do not know the answers to all these questions. That is why we have a panel here for discussion and of course other resource persons and experts here to help out or add more confusion (especially the U.P. professors, of which Joma was one).
I am still on my main point about the need for paradigm shifts or other new thinking out of our old boxes. In the book’s Introduction, I noted that sometime back it was reported in the news that presidential candidate Duterte had asked his former Lyceum (not U.P.) professor Sison to abandon the armed struggle and join the democratic process instead and use it to fight for the change the communists had been pushing for. “Armed struggle as a means to achieve change is passe in the modern world we are living in today,” Duterte said, adding that the “over 40 years of armed struggle and thousands of lives lost is too much to bear.” Is it not a viable alternative for the revolutionary movement to strategically and transformationally “join [and reform] the democratic process instead” based on the movement’s faith in the masses and in the merits of the national-democratic (or even socialist) program? Are the masses who make history not bound to sooner or later support that program which presumably represents their best interests if that program and its standard-bearers are offered as a choice in a viable democratic political process that does not involve a costly resort to arms? Not all the roots of the armed conflict can nor should be fully addressed in the negotiations – otherwise it might take another 30 years! Some of such addressing and necessary reforms, will have to be left to the dynamics of other political and democratic processes with the people’s meaningful participation in the policy decisions that affect them – and which other political and democratic processes can also be agreed upon in the talks.
I do not know if this already indicates a presumptive paradigm shift about the armed struggle but Joma also told the afore-mentioned Davao media forum this about “the impending interim ceasefire”: “The ceasefire between the armed forces of the GPH and the NDFP and the eventual conclusive success of the peace negotiations should make more resources available for expanding industrial and agricultural production and education, health and other social services… The people’s army will not be idle even if it is in a mode of self-defense and does not actively carry out offensive military campaigns and operations against the AFP and PNP. It can continue to engage in mass work, land reform, production, health care, cultural work, politico-military training, defense and protection of the environment and natural resources against illegal mining, logging and landgrabbing and it can continue to suppress drug dealing, cattle rustling, robbery, kidnapping and other criminal acts as well as despotic acts of local tyrants.”
Ceasefire used to be the hardest word for the CPP, NPA and NDFP. Not so any more, it seems. Paradigm shift? Not so fast. And we probably should say the same about the current GPH-NDFP peace process, not so fast. One of the CPP’s reaffirmist principles is “Wage the protracted people’s war in stages and carry out extensive and intensive guerrilla warfare based on an ever widening and deepening mass base.” The CPP and NPA anniversary statements year in and year out for some time now have invariably called for advancing towards the strategic stalemate stage. They still adhere to the Maoist dictums that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” and “without the people’s army, the people have nothing.” Has a change in that thinking come? Maybe not or not yet, as we said, not so fast. The CPP has posited: “By strengthening his stand for national freedom, Duterte can work with the Filipino people in pushing the Philippines to a new unprecedented chapter of economic progress, modernization, social justice and people empowerment…. Such are the potentials if the Duterte regime chooses to work in a patriotic and democratic alliance with the Filipino people and their progressive and revolutionary forces.” The CPP is saying that the Duterte administration’s engagement with the NDFP will help bring about necessary and salutary social change. What the CPP is not saying is whether the NDFP’s engagement with the Duterte administration, including through the peace process, would also bring about a necessary and salutary strategic change or paradigm shift in the CPP. Or are we dreaming too much about those changes coming on both sides?
The book’s collected articles on the problematic GPH-NDFP peace process during the past Aquino administration perhaps still have the residual relevance and merit of bringing our feet back to the ground. It shows how the process can bog down even on side issues that are not on the substantive agenda. Such bogging down is largely due to the strategic orientations and corresponding tactical approaches of the parties. There is enough blame to share on both sides. What is important now is to learn the lessons from that negative experience so as not to repeat it. New players on the GPH side do not automatically guarantee a non-repetition of history. The GPH peace teams which change with each presidential administration tend to have a lack of institutional memory and policy continuity – in contrast to the protracted NDFP peace team.
To go back to what Duterte told Sison during the election campaign: “…over 40 years of armed struggle and thousands of lives lost is too much to bear.” It takes two to “armed struggle,” so this term can be said to refer not only to the NPA but also to the AFP although its version is usually referred to as “counter-insurgency.” One settlement strategy to handle or break an impasse in court-related mediation is to present a cost-benefit analysis of the dispute and its litigation. With more reason does it behoove both sides of the armed conflict to honestly sum-up and evaluate the cost-effectiveness of their respective armed strategies of “over 40 years.” If done honestly, the summings-up and evaluations should occasion a paradigm shift. At what tipping point do the sacrifices in lives become unnecessary? Speaking of “thousands of lives lost” as a cost, a couple of articles in the book highlight some of the fallen rebels and soldiers by names and stories beyond the cold casualty statistics – which also include civilians caught in the crossfire. But for the paradigm to shift, there must be more value given to such loss of life which has an exponential effect beyond each individual person killed. It of course helps when we know or are related to them personally. Even if they are the “enemy,” their lives matter too.
The book’s article on fallen rebels and soldiers is also found in another book of mine which, with the indulgence of CPCS and all of you here, before ending, I will segue now into a brief plugging of this other book which is piggy-backing on the main book being launched — with its own side launch of sorts (there in that booth [wo]manned by my legal wife of 40 years, Doods). But this other book is relevant to the main book and the point I just made about valuing lives lost in the armed conflict, and this can be readily seen from its title: Homages & Histories: Family & Friends, Nagueños & Moros, Rebels & Soldiers, Warriors & Peacemakers. These are tributes to 23 persons who have passed away, among them communist and Moro rebels, Filipino soldiers from three generations, peace negotiators and civil society peace advocates, all of whom I have come to know. At the risk of raising my own roof, allow me to read from the back cover blurb of then Congresswoman now Vice-President Leni Robredo of Naga City: “While we are trying to get our heads on how to achieve genuine friendship, coexistence, fortitude, peace, and freedom, Sol Santos, a longtime friend and esteemed colleague, offers a heartwarming but cerebral street map towards the much-sought values and ideals.” Ironically, while the main book is being given out for free by CPCS, this other book published by the Ateneo de Naga University Press is being sold for P400. Thank you. Daghang salamat. Dios mabalos.
SOLIMAN M. SANTOS, JR. Pasig City, 11 July 2016