In September 1992, the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front (NDF) signed a joint declaration in The Hague, Netherlands, in which the two sides signified their intention to hold peace negotiations in order to resolve their long-standing armed conflict and work towards the attainment of a just and lasting peace. The two parties laid down four substantive agenda for the talks: (1) human rights and international humanitarian law; (2) social and economic reforms; (3) political and constitutional reforms; and (4) end of hostilities and disposition of forces.
In March 1998, the government and the NDF forged the so-called Comprehensive Agreement for Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) avowedly “to affirm their constant and continuing mutual commitment to respect human rights and the principles of international humanitarian law.” GRP peace panel member Rene V. Sarmiento, currently the officer-in-charge of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), has hailed it as “a landmark agreement” and a “glowing testimonial to the painstaking and persevering efforts of the two sides.” Luis Jalandoni, chair of the NDF peace panel, has likewise extolled it, declaring it to be “founded on the interests, aspirations and concrete situation of the Filipino people, especially the workers, peasants, urban poor, women, fisherfolk, national minorities and other struggling sectors of Philippine society.” [1]
Today, over thirteen years since the signing of the declaration in The Hague, there are no signs of a comprehensive peace agreement between the government and the NDF being reached anytime soon. In recent years, in fact, the armed clashes between government and rebel forces and the numbers of those killed as a result of the fighting have increased. [2] Despite CARHRIHL, the human rights situation has worsened - arbitrary arrests and detention, torture, extra-judicial killings, involuntary disappearances and forced displacements have sharply increased. With widening poverty, joblessness, landlessness and violence, the human security situation has likewise deteriorated. Through all these years, the government and the NDF have been blaming each other for the lack of progress in the talks and accusing each other of not really being serious about the peace process.
To say that one or both sides are not really serious about the whole process may seem too facile an explanation for the lack of progress in the talks. But indeed, neither side is really serious. A good hard look at the very character of the two parties and of their actions especially outside of the talks would reveal why this is so. The lofty claims of both the government and the NDF about commitment to democracy, human rights and peace do not hold much water.
The government is essentially the instrument of what Paul Hutchcroft has described as a “patrimonial oligarchic state” - a weak state captured and preyed upon by an entrenched politico-economic elite, who take advantage of, and extract privilege from, a largely incoherent bureaucracy. [3] The government presides over an “elite democracy” [4] or “cacique democracy,” [5] a truncated type of formal democracy in which the country’s powerful political families manipulate and dominate elections through patronage, corruption and violence.
The NDF is the politico-diplomatic front of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), the CPP’s New People’s Army and the CPP-led “national democratic” (ND) organizations. The CPP-NPA-NDF, which has been waging a “protracted people’s war” over the last 37 years, seeks to overthrow the government and establish a “national democracy” or “people’s democracy” patterned after that of China under Mao’s time. [6] The experiences of the Communist Party-led states of Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, etc., have shown that their so-called “people’s republics” and “people’s democracies” evolved into Stalinist one-party dictatorships.
The government and the CPP-NPA-NDF seek to destroy the other mainly through military means. For both, the peace talks are merely a tool of war. While continuing with its military operations against NPA guerrillas, the government engages in the talks and tries to win back CPP-NPA-NDF adherents into the fold of the law (read: surrender) by undertaking some cosmetic reforms and granting a few concessions. (“Law” in a patrimonial oligarchic state, perhaps needless to say, is not exactly the same as that in a rule of law.) The CPP-NPA-NDF still aims to seize political power mainly through armed means. The talks are a means for attaining the “belligerency status,” [7] for weakening and isolating the government nationally and internationally and priming it for eventual overthrow. Netherlands-based CPP chairman Jose Ma. Sison (aka Armando Liwanag) insists that “the people’s democratic government has already gained [belligerency status] through the people’s revolutionary struggle” but admits that it still has to work for international or diplomatic recognition of such status. [8]
When the government and the NDF first held talks in December 1986, the former was in a relatively strong negotiating position. The government of Corazon C. Aquino, installed by no less than the “People Power Revolution” of 1986, was riding high. The CPP-NPA-NDF was on the political defensive. Because of its boycott of the 1986 elections, it had been left out of the popular uprising and was beset by internal debates and recriminations. The government, however, was not very stable, threatened by militarist forces plotting to topple it through coup d’etat. The militarists favored a hardline policy towards all insurgents. The GRP-NDF talks collapsed in less than two months. The government then waged “total war” against the CPP-NPA-NDF, but did not succeed in vanquishing the Maoist rebels. [9]
Because of the sudden and extraordinary turn of events in 1986-7, the CPP-NPA-NDF had not had much opportunity to define clearly how peace negotiations fitted, if at all, in its over-all revolutionary strategy. Within the CPP-NPA-NDF, the issue of belligerency status became a bone of contention. Prior to the 1986-7 talks, the GRP and the NDF had signed a Memorandum of Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees and Physical Centers and Facilities, which stated: “The present armed conflict referred to in this and in the preliminary ceasefire agreement, as well as in all subsequent agreements, is an internal problem of the Philippines. This agreement, the preliminary ceasefire agreement, and any other subsequent agreement, or any provision or provisions thereof, shall not invest the NDF with the status of belligerency under the laws of war.” In a letter to the CPP Central Committee, Sison excoriated the NDF panel’s acquiescence to this provision, among others, interpreting this as a surrender to GRP authority. In his view, the NDF, by signing the 1986 ceasefire agreement, had “given up in principle its claim to political authority over millions of people in extensive areas of the Philippines; outlawed its own people’s army; rendered illegitimate such functions of the people’s government as taxation and defense; deprived itself of the rights and privileges under the laws of war; and unwittingly made GRP-NDF negotiations on the substantive issues superfluous inasmuch as these become subject to GRP authority, institutions and processes.” [10] Because of his concern for belligerency status, Sison also criticized the NDF panel’s agreement to the talks being held in the Philippines: “It is necessary for the talks to be conducted elsewhere because for the NDF and all other revolutionary forces to gain the status of belligerency, at least, there should be one country serving as mediator and formalizing in the eyes of international law the status of belligerency that properly belongs to the revolutionary movement.” [11]
What role could peace talks possibly have in a “people’s war”? In the early 1990s, in the course of pursuing its international relations work, the CPP-NPA-NDF finally came round to finding and defining a role for peace negotiations. Since the fall of Marcos, the NDF had been stumped with the question of how it could advance its “diplomatic struggle.” In trying to reach out to governments and inter-governmental bodies, the NDF often could not even make it to “first base” - gaining an audience with their representatives (other than low-level functionaries). The idea of the NDF pushing for peace talks came up. Given the prolonged nature and the great human and economic costs of the armed conflict in the Philippines, who possibly would not support peace talks? It was resolved that the CPP-NPA-NDF would use peace negotiations as a tactic to develop the NDF’s “diplomatic struggle” and to eventually gain “belligerency status.” The revolutionary objective would continue to be the capture of state power and the principal means to achieve this would still be armed struggle. Peace talks and “diplomatic struggle” would be in the service of armed seizure of state power. [12]
Peace-negotiations-as-tactic scored some quick initial successes. After some lobbying by Europe-based CPP-NDF members right at the European Parliament premises in Brussels, the EP passed a resolution in December 1990 expressing concern over grave violations of human rights in the Philippines and explicitly calling on the government and the NDF to open peace negotiations. The NDF had achieved a breakthrough in its diplomatic work - it was the very first time that the NDF was ever mentioned in an EP resolution. In 1991, just several months after the EP breakthrough, the NDF scored again, as the Swiss government offered its good offices for peace talks between the Philippine government and the NDF. [13]
Installed in mid-1992, the administration of Fidel V. Ramos was in a much stronger position in negotiating with the NDF than its predecessor. In the wake of the fall of the socialist regimes in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, the CPP-NPA-NDF had been plunged deeper into internal dissension and, by the start of Ramos’ term, was on the verge of a big split. Moreover, Ramos, a retired general, knew how to deal with disgruntled elements within the Philippine armed forces. [14] There were no major coup attempts under his administration.
Ramos’ decision to reopen talks with the NDF seemed a very shrewd move. Apart from being in a strong negotiating position, he knew the CPP-NPA-NDF’s game. He refused to have the GRP-NDF talks officially hosted by a foreign government, recognizing the politico-diplomatic implications of the involvement of such a third party. In The Hague, the GRP quickly agreed with the NDF on the four substantive agenda mentioned earlier. Ramos’ intent was to get a final, comprehensive peace agreement sewn up as soon as the two sides had arrived at a consensus on all four items. He wanted the final agreement signed before the end of his term. [15]
Still aiming for “total victory,” the CPP-NPA-NDF was not interested in a final political settlement. Instead of working for a final pact within a period of several months or a few years, the CPP-NPA-NDF wanted to stretch out the whole peace process indefinitely and to eke out as much politico-diplomatic gain as it could every step of the way. “Protracted peace talks” would be turned into valuable tool for the “protracted people’s war.” Accordingly, it took a piecemeal approach in the peace process, one agenda item at a time. And take your time. As a first step in its “protracted peace talks” game plan, the CPP-NPA-NDF pushed for an agreement on human rights and international humanitarian law.
At the time that the NDF had just opened peace negotiations with the Ramos government, there were those within the CPP-NPA-NDF who questioned the very universality of human rights. They regarded human rights as being “bourgeois-liberal,” to quote former CPP secretary-general Rafael Baylosis, now an NDF peace panel member. Nonetheless, they saw a tactical use in the struggle for human rights, as Baylosis explains:
The struggle for “human rights” is a legitimate and necessary part of the overall national democratic struggle. In my opinion, however, it should be confined to the sphere of tactical struggle or the struggle for reforms, used as only one of the means or forms of organization in working or forging alliances with those in the upper sections of the petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie and with their bourgeois-reformist organizations; in working within the state bureaucracy and the military, and other reactionary institutions like the Church, in order to divide the reactionary classes; and in drawing sympathy and support for our struggle from bourgeois-liberal political forces and institutions of other countries. It is also an important instrument in principled political negotiations of revolutionary and progressive forces with the reactionary government or any part of this. Also in dealing with important international organizations dominated by imperialism and reaction like the United Nations. [16]
According to Ramon Casiple of the Philippine Alliance of Human Rights Advocates (PAHRA), Baylosis’ position found scant support among human rights advocates. This prompted the CPP-NPA-NDF to try to refine its human rights position. Breaking with Baylosis’ position, Sison avowedly recognizes the universality of human rights. The CPP chairman, however, has adopted a class-based human rights framework that, as Casiple puts it, is actually “hostile to the universality principle.” [17] Sison depicts the “exploiting classes” - the “imperialists” and “big compradors and landlords” - in absolute terms as violating the human rights (civil and political as well as economic, social and cultural) of the “exploited classes” - the workers, peasants and middle social strata. He portrays the “reactionary” Philippine state as serving as an instrument of oppression of the exploiting classes and as “violating the guarantees of civil and political rights in the bill of rights of its own constitution as well as those in the U.N. instruments on human rights.” Then he asserts that only a “people’s democratic state” would guarantee the human rights of the people in every aspect of social life, and that the only genuine human rights movement is one that pursues the ND line. [18]
During talks held in the Netherlands and by telephone and fax in early 1995 on the formation of “Reciprocal Working Committees” (RWCs) on the four agenda items, the NDF succeeded in somewhat outmaneuvering the government side. The GRP panel wanted the RWCs on the four agenda items to conduct discussions simultaneously, so that a final peace agreement could be forged at the soonest possible time. However, the Joint Agreement on the Formation, Sequence and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees (or RWC Agreement) that the GRP and NDF panels signed in Brussels, Belgium, in June 1995 hewed more to the NDF’s piecemeal approach. The RWC Agreement provided that the two panels would first form an RWC on human rights and international humanitarian law, followed three months after by an RWC on social and economic reforms, then three months after by an RWC on political and constitutional reforms; and for an unspecified period after by an RWC on end of hostilities and disposition of forces. The agreement further provided: “The RWCs shall recommend to the Negotiating Panels the separate and distinct effectivity dates of each comprehensive agreement as a whole as well as certain parts or provisions thereof. Subsequently, the Negotiating Panels shall discuss and mutually agree on the aforesaid dates of effectivity.”
By April 1997, the RWC on human rights still had not completed its work and the next RWC on line - that on social economic reforms - still had not been formed. At the rate the work was proceeding, it would be impossible for a final peace agreement to be hammered out before the end of Ramos’ term, which was just a little over a year away.
To hasten the peace process and to counter the NDF’s piecemeal approach, the government proposed a “Four-in-One Package”: “the four comprehensive agreements on the substantive agenda for the talks will be negotiated and initialed, but the implementation of the agreements will be made possible only after signing by the Panels and approval by the principals, when all four agreements are completed.” [19]
The opening provided by the RWC Agreement to the NDF for the protraction of the peace process, however, could no longer be undone. The NDF rejected the “Four-in-One Package.” Sticking to its piecemeal approach, it remained focused on having an agreement on human rights and international humanitarian law worked out. Bit by bit, the NDF, through dogged persistence, broke down GRP resistance. The government panel eventually acceded to CARHRIHL even without the completion of the agreements on the three other items and of the final peace pact.
The GRP and the NDF panels set the objectives of CARHRIHL as follows:
– To guarantee the protection of human rights to all Filipinos under all circumstances, especially the workers, peasants and other poor people;
– To affirm and apply the principles of international humanitarian law in order to protect the civilian population and individual civilians, as well as persons who do not take direct part or who have ceased to take part in the armed hostilities, including persons deprived of their liberty for reasons related to the armed conflict;
– To establish effective mechanisms and measures for realizing, monitoring, verifying and ensuring compliance with the provisions of this Agreement; and
– To pave the way for comprehensive agreements on economic, social and political reforms that will ensure the attainment of a just and lasting peace.
In truth, CARHRIHL was a superfluous agreement. Its provisions were already contained in various international declarations and conventions on human rights and international humanitarian law, which the Philippine government had long signed and ratified and which the NDF had already avowed its adherence to. Among the most important international declarations and conventions that the government has agreed to or ratified are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (both of which entered into force in 1976), the Geneva Conventions (1949), and Protocol II (1977). [20] The GRP and the NDF acknowledged, in fact, that CARHIHL includes principles of human rights and international humanitarian law “embodied in the instruments signed by the Philippines and deemed to be mutually applicable to and acceptable by both Parties.” Moreover, both sides have long had human rights bodies that are supposed to address and take action on human rights violations - the human rights commission of the GRP and a network of human rights groups aligned with the CPP-NPA-NDF.
After representatives of the GRP and the NDF signed CARHRIHL in March 1998, the agreement still had to be approved by the “principals” of both parties for it to take effect. NDF Chairman Mariano Orosa (pseudonym) quickly signed in April 1998. Newly-installed Philippine President Joseph Estrada approved CARHRIHL four months later through Memorandum Order No. 9, stipulating, however, that the implementation of the agreement would be in accordance with the Constitution and legal processes of the Republic of the Philippines. [21] Despite the principals’ approvals, nothing much happened with CARHRIHL in the succeeding months. The agreement had provided for the formation of a Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) that was supposed to monitor the agreement’s implementation, but it had yet to be set up.
Estrada was not interested in an implementing mechanism for CARHRIHL; he wanted an immediate comprehensive peace agreement with the NDF. Quickly becoming exasperated with the NDF’s refusal to move towards a comprehensive pact, Estrada declared “all-out war” against the CPP-NPA-NDF, which was then (2000) still in the doldrums. Estrada’s war failed miserably. Instead of being brought down to its knees, the CPP-NPA-NDF revived, most especially in the political sphere. [22] Ironically, the campaign for the ouster of the corrupt Estrada, in which open legal ND organizations participated actively, proved pivotal in the Maoists’ recovery. The campaign culminated in the popular uprising of January 2001 (“People Power II”), which toppled Estrada and put Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in power.
While Estrada was still in Malacañang, Arroyo had already been critical of “all-out war” and favored the resumption of GRP-NDF talks. In appreciation of the NDs’ role in “People Power II” and as “confidence-building measures” for the talks, Arroyo extended certain “gratuities” to the NDs. With the full endorsement of Arroyo’s People Power Coalition, the open legal ND political party, Bayan Muna, topped party-list ballot of May 2001. [23] Moreover, the Arroyo government acceded to the NDF’s long-standing demand of official foreign government involvement in the talks. In fact, it went even further. Confident that no country would ever grant the NDF belligerency status under present global conditions, the Arroyo government proposed that the talks be held in Oslo under the auspices of the Norwegian government.
Just like her predecessors, however, Arroyo was unable to make any progress on a “one-piece” final peace agreement. Unable to think up of better options, the GRP once again veered towards a hardline position. When the United States and the European launched a global war on terror after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S., the Arroyo government supported the inclusion of the CPP-NPA in the U.S.-European Union list of “foreign terrorist organizations” and the freezing of its assets.
The “terrorist” tag proved a major blow to the NDF’s politico-diplomatic efforts as it negated the image of a respectable political force that the CPP-NPA-NDF had wanted to create for itself and to project. Inclusion in the terrorist list, however, did not lead to an actual crackdown on the international network of CPP-NPA-NDF forces. All that “freezing of assets” succeeded in doing was to put a stop on the monthly dole of a few hundred euros that Sison received every month from Dutch social welfare, and the confiscation of advance royalty from the American publisher of his latest book. [24]
The NDF has repeatedly demanded that the GRP work for the removal of the CPP-NPA from the U.S.-E.U. terrorist list. The U.S., however, has refused to budge. According to a ranking official of the U.S. Embassy in Manila, the CPP-NPA would be stricken off the U.S. list of terrorist organizations only if the NDF forges a peace pact with the Philippine government. [25] To neutralize and eventually to overturn the “terrorist” tag, the CPP-NPA-NDF has intensified its politico-diplomatic efforts, particularly in the peace talks arena. CARHRIHL has played a major role in these efforts.
After the signing of CARHRIHL in 1998, the NDF had insisted on the formation of the JMC to oversee the implementation of the agreement. With Estrada’s “all-out war,” however, the GRP-NDF peace talks collapsed. After the fall of Estrada and upon the resumption of talks, the NDF brought back the JMC issue, arguing: What’s the point of a human rights agreement if there is no implementing mechanism? At first the Arroyo government insisted that “since sovereignty is indivisible it is the Philippine government alone which has the sole authority to implement all of CARHRIHL including the power to arrest, prosecute, try and impose sanctions on human rights violators.” [26] The NDF persisted and once again scored point after point in its diplomatic game. First, the government relented on the JMC - its resistance to an implementing mechanism for an agreement it had already signed proved untenable. Then the Norwegian government agreed to fund the JMC’s operations. [27] With the JMC in place, the CPP-NPA-NDF has used CARHRIHL to the hilt to “expose and oppose” the “repressive” and “anti-human rights” character of the GRP. In its press releases on CARHRIHL, it often points out that the overwhelming majority of the complaints on human rights abuses filed with the JMC are complaints against GRP forces and that only a few complaints have been lodged against NDF forces. [28]
CARHRIHL is somewhat turning into what the CPP-NPA-NDF had wanted it all along to be: a tool for gaining international recognition for the NDF as a “respectable” quasi-state entity that adheres to the norms of human rights and international humanitarian law; and for expediting the political isolation and eventual revolutionary overthrow of the “reactionary Philippine state.” Since the CPP-NPA-NDF does not have the means to immediately seize power, it fights a protracted war and builds up strength through accretion. CARHRIHL is proving most useful for such protraction and accretion.
While endeavoring to build itself up as a respectable, human rights-abiding political force, the CPP-NPA-NDF has been whitewashing or covering up its own violations of international humanitarian law. It refuses to submit itself to an independent and impartial investigation of the torture and killing of hundreds or even thousands of suspected “deep penetration agents” (DPAs), other summary executions, kidnappings, the Plaza Miranda bombing of 1971, etc. [29] And it has continued to go about its vicious ways in carrying out political assassinations and harassment of leaders and members of other left groups, holding kangaroo “people’s” courts, forcibly collecting revolutionary taxes and “permit-to-campaign” fees, etc. Among the victims of the CPP-NPA-NDF’s extra-judicial executions have been two former CPP Executive Committee members shot in cold blood: former NPA chief Romulo Kintanar and Revolutionary Workers’ Party of the Philippines chairman Arturo Tabara.
In December 2004, Ang Bayan, the CPP newspaper, published a list of rival left parties and groups and their leaders categorizing these groups as “counterrevolutionary.” [30] Since the CPP-NPA-NDF, in the past, has summarily executed many prominent left leaders that it has deemed to be “counterrevolutionary” (like Kintanar and Tabara), those mentioned in Ang Bayan expressed alarm and denounced the CPP-NPA-NDF’s “hit list.” In response, Sison, as NDF “chief political consultant,” challenged the protesters to submit their complaints to the JMC of CARHRIHL. After putting people on an apparent hit list, the CPP-NPA-NDF was now attempting to use them in giving legitimacy to its politico-diplomatic instrument. Ominously, Sison added: “The CARHRIHL provides for the NDFP and the revolutionary forces and people it represents to arrest suspected violators of human rights and international humanitarian law, investigate them and, if the evidence warrants, to prosecute and try them.” [31]
The government has been most unimaginative and ineffective in dealing with the CPP-NPA-NDF, using “hard” or “soft” tactics or a disjointed combination of the two. The hardline militarist approach, dubbed with such fearsome labels as “total war,” “all-out war,” or “war on terror,” has never really worked. Under conditions of widespread poverty and great social disparity and with the government widely perceived as being controlled by the elite, CPP-NPA-NDF has managed to maintain a sizeable mass base among the disaffected, especially in the countryside. The large-scale violations of human rights that have resulted from the Philippine military’s “counter-insurgency” or “counter-terrorism” operations have served to further alienate large sections of the population from the government. When the GRP shifts to the “soft” approach (peace negotiations), the NDF almost always outmaneuvers it in the politico-diplomatic game. In its carrot-and-stick approach, the government seems not to have figured that it’s dealing not with a rabbit, but with a fox. While the government has kept changing its peace panel (with each president wanting his or her own appointees), the NDF has maintained the same group of negotiators, who are now much more experienced than their GRP counterparts.
In the ultimate analysis, however, the GRP side needs much more than just skill and imagination in the negotiations. For as long as the Philippine state does not shed its patrimonial oligarchic character, it is extremely difficult for the GRP to achieve and maintain the moral high ground in the peace talks - or in its war against the CPP-NPA-NDF - and there is probably nothing much it can do to outmaneuver, outfox and much more defeat the CPP-NPA-NDF.
Among all the post-Marcos administrations, the Arroyo administration has fared the worst in dealing with the CPP-NPA-NDF. Randolf David has described Arroyo as “a patrimonial president” who practices “governance by patronage.” Arroyo used to be faulted for “giving health insurance, jobs, educational loans and home lots” to secure votes. [32] Now enmeshed in scandals involving large-scale electoral fraud and illegal gambling, she, together with some close relatives, appears to have graduated into the big leagues. Since the fall of the corrupt Estrada, the Philippines is widely seen as having become even more corrupt. According to Transparency International, its score in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) dropped from 2.9 in 2001 to 2.5 in 2005. The Philippines now ranks 117th to 125th out of 159 countries in the CPI scale, tied with the likes of Afghanistan and Uganda and inching closer to the levels of Cambodia and Myanmar. In a national survey conducted by Pulse Asia in June 2005, Filipinos rated the Arroyo administration as inferior in comparative performance to the Estrada administration in all twelve selected economic, social and political concerns. Fifty-nine per cent of Filipinos found that the Arroyo government’s performance in fighting graft and corruption in government was worse than Estrada’s. As the quintessence of post-authoritarian patronage, corruption and patrimonialism, the Arroyo government has now become the chief recruiter of the CPP-NPA-NDF.
If the GRP-NDF peace talks were to remain largely a process involving the two sides, nothing much would come out of them. What kind of a final comprehensive peace pact, if one ever does materialize, could possibly result between a patrimonial oligarchic state and a Stalinist-Maoist force that seeks to establish a one-party dictatorship?
Not all is lost, however. There are third party forces involved - peace movements, human rights groups, sectoral movements, etc., as well as governments, inter-governmental organizations and other international organizations that are willing to help the peace process. [33] And there are apt to be individuals and groups within both the GRP and CPP-NPA-NDF desirous of a just and lasting peace and who at some point will not be constrained within the narrow frameworks of the GRP and the NDF. (The experience of the great internal debate and split of 1990-93 showed that the CPP-NPA-NDF monolith can very well crack under certain conditions.)
Peace and human rights groups that are not aligned with the GRP or the CPP-NPA-NDF recognize that a just and lasting peace in the Philippines cannot be achieved for as long as millions of Filipinos wallow in poverty and misery, while wealth and power remain concentrated in the hands of a few. The attainment of peace cannot but involve radical political and social change, and the deepening of a formal democracy (a truncated formal democracy at that) into a more substantive one. The search for a just and enduring peace entails sharp, forceful but nuanced contestation with both the GRP and the CPP-NPA-NDF.
As mentioned earlier, various social scientists have characterized the Philippines as a patrimonial oligarchic state, an elite democracy or a cacique democracy. Such characterizations of elite rule, however, do not present a complete picture of the country’s politics. The Philippines is a “contested democracy,” one in which an entrenched politico-economic elite promotes a truncated type of formal democracy (“elite democracy”) while the poor and marginalized classes and communities, together with some sections of the middle and upper classes, struggle to turn this into a participatory and egalitarian democracy (“democracy from below”). The contestation is being fought in various spheres: civil society, elections, governance, etc. Indicative of this contestation are the vibrant mass movements of the poor and of marginalized sectors (peasants, workers, urban poor, women, indigenous peoples, etc.) as well on particular issues (debt, consumer issues, human rights, peace, etc.) that have pushed for significant political, economic and social reforms. The “people power” uprisings of 1986 and 2001 were awesome manifestations of popular resistance not just to dictatorship and/or corruption but also to elite rule. [34]
The two forces engaged in the deadly struggle for political power - the government and the CPP-NPA-NDF - portray themselves as being the representatives of genuine democracy. In truth, the two have poor democratic credentials. The government represents elite democracy. The CPP-NPA-NDF misrepresents itself as the vanguard of “democracy from below.” The CPP-NPA-NDF portrays “national democracy” or “people’s democracy” as being truly a democracy of and for the broad masses of the Filipino people - the peasants, workers and middle classes. As pointed out earlier, however, the experiences of the Communist Party-led states of Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, etc., have shown that their “people’s republics” and “people’s democracies” turned into Stalinist one-party dictatorships. In the GRP-NDF talks, neither the GRP nor the CPP-NPA-NDF is really serious about working for substantive democracy. All that the government really cares about is asserting sovereignty - that it alone has supremacy of authority in the country. In its politico-diplomatic efforts to help pave the way for armed seizure of power, the CPP-NPA-NDF has become obsessed with the issue of belligerency. [35]
The behavior of the government and the CPP-NPA-NDF over the past two decades has shown that the GRP-NDF peace talks - and peace process as a whole - have served and continue to be an arena for contestation. The contestation, however, does not have to be limited only to, and between, the GRP and the CPP-NPA-NDF, nor to the vested interests of the two parties. To peace and human rights groups that are not aligned with either of the two, the GRP-NDF peace process can serve as an arena for countering the hegemony of the increasingly plunderous oligarchic elite and the trapos (traditional politicians) associated with them, and an arena too for countering the inroads and advances of a totalitarian force. It can serve as a vehicle for advocacy for political and social change, for the transformation of the Philippines’ formal, elite-dominated democracy into a more substantive and popular one.
The GRP or the NDF or both would probably object to having representatives of non-aligned civil society formations sitting in and participating directly in the talks proper. This, however, should not prove a hindrance to peace groups from airing their views on the peace process to the general Philippine public and to the international audience, endorsing or criticizing positions taken by the GRP and the NDF, and putting forward their own positions and proposals for pushing the process forward. In this way, peace advocates can democratize the peace process, help make it much more transparent, and prevent its further erosion into a mere instrument of both state and revolution.
In pushing for radical and democratic change, peace advocates would have to work closely with reformists within government as well as international forces assisting in the peace process, and search for open-minded individuals within the CPP-NPA-NDF. There are many potential allies in government who can be relied on. Since the fall of Marcos, all the governments from Aquino to Arroyo have had “doves” in various departments and levels who have seen the need for substantial - not just cosmetic - economic, political and social reforms. Most of the members of the GRP peace panels under various administrations have in fact been genuine state reformists who have taken the often frustrating and thankless task of pushing for a reform agenda within a patrimonial oligarchic state while fending off the relentless drive for “belligerency status” of Stalinist forces.
Both the government and the CPP-NPA-NDF will seek to keep the peace process largely a GRP-NDF affair with minimal participation from forces in Philippine civil society that are not aligned with either of the two. If such non-aligned forces manage to get into the picture, the two sides will attempt to use and manipulate them for their respective ends. The Arroyo government wants peace advocates to endorse its weapon against the CPP-NPA-NDF: the “war on terror.” The CPP-NPA-NDF wants peace advocates to give support, credence and legitimacy to its “belligerency status” instrument: CARHRIHL. The government will resist efforts to reform the patrimonial oligarchic state; the NDF will try to make such efforts conform to the ND line and program.
Peace advocates would have to look at the whole picture and not allow themselves to get caught up in the GRP’s and the CPP-NPA-NDF’s games, maneuvers and tricks. The challenge for them is to create and expand the political space for the peace movement to make a difference. The focus of the peace movement’s endeavors should be a peace pact that provides mechanisms for effecting radical political and social change, and for transforming the country’s elite-dominated democracy into a popular, participatory and egalitarian democracy. Such a pact will be the result not primarily of negotiations between the GRP and the CPP-NPA-NDF, but of pressure from third parties - peace groups in the Philippines, as well as foreign governments and international bodies - brought down to bear on these two intransigent and not so savory characters.
Notes
1. Rene V. Sarmiento, “The Comprehensive Agreement on Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law: A Document of Peace and Human Rights,” Focus Asia-Pacific, no. 33, September 2003, pp 10-11.
2. See Project Ploughshares, “Armed Conflicts Report, Philippines-CPP/NPA, January 2005,” http://www.ploughshares.ca/libraries/ACRText/ACR-PhilippinesN.html.
3. Paul Hutchcroft, Booty Capitalism: The Politics of Banking in the Philippines, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1998.
4. Walden Bello and John Gershman, “Democratization and Stabilization in the Philippines,” Critical Sociology, 17 (Spring 1990), 35-56; Robert Stauffer, “Philippine Democracy: Contradictions of Third World Redemocratization,” Kasarinlan, 6 (1990), 7-22; David G. Timberman, A Changeless Land: Continuity and Change in Philippine Politics. New York and Singapore: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., and Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1991.
5. Benedict Anderson, “Cacique Democracy in the Philippines: Origins and Dreams,” New Left Review, 169 (1988), pp. 3-31.
6. See Amado Guerrero (Jose Ma. Sison), Philippine Society and Revolution, United States: International Association of Filipino Patriots, 1979, chap. 3.
7. In a civil armed conflict, a rebel force acquires belligerency status if the established government or the governments of other nations treat it as if it were a sovereign power. In the past, once a rebel force was recognized as having belligerency rights, neutral nations often abstained from supporting either the government or the rebels. In effect, this meant a diminution in the international standing of the government and a gain for the rebels. Currently, however, nations refrain from explicitly recognizing rebels as belligerents in order to maintain their flexibility in dealing with the parties in conflict.
8. Ninotchka Rosca, Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World, Greensboro, Open Hand Publishing, 2004, p. 98.
9. See Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, “Beyond ‘Total Victory’ and ‘Total War’: An Analysis of the GRP-NDF Talks,” Sunday Chronicle, 24 October 1993.
10. Patnubay Liwanag (pseudonym of Sison), “Letter to the CPP Central Committee, December 6, 1986,” unpublished document.
11. “A Gift to the Government: Jose Maria Sison Casts a Cold Eye on the Philippine Ceasefire” (interview with Sison), Ampo, vol. 19, no. 1, 1987, p. 60.
12. Here and in succeeding passages about the CPP-NPA-NDF’s view and conduct vis-à-vis peace talks in the early 1990s, I write from personal recollection, having been a member of the CPP’s International Department and the NDF”s International Commission in 1987-92.
13. The big debate within the CPP prior to its split in 1992-3 focused mainly on questions related to strategy and the vision of an alternative society. Among the issues debated was the role of peace negotiations in the CPP’s overall revolutionary strategy. For more about the discussions and debate within the CPP-NPA-NDF on peace talks, see Omar Tupaz (a pseudonym that I used in the late 1980s and early 1990s), “Toward a Strategic View of Peace Negotiations,” Debate, pilot issue, March 1991; and Quimpo 1993.
14. In 1995, in fact, the Ramos government signed a peace agreement with military rebels belonging to the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabansa (RAM or Revolutionary Patriotic Alliance) and granted unconditional amnesty to 3,731 military officers and soldiers involved in the 1987 and 1989 coup attempts.
15. See Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF (GPNP-CNN) Secretariat, Compilation of Documents Signed in the Peace Negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front (NDF), Pasig City: Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF, 2004, p. xxiii.
16. Rafael Baylosis, “Ilang Punto Hinggil sa usaping ‘Human Rights’” (Some Notes on the Question of ‘Human Rights’), paper presented before a forum of the Gabriela Commission on Political Rights, 18 July 1994, p. 6. Translated from Filipino.
17. See Ramon Casiple, “Fallacies against Human Rights,” Pingkian, vol. 1, no. 1, July 1996, pp. 9-10.
18. Jose Ma. Sison, “Strengthen the Alliance for Human Rights in the National-Democratic Movement,” message to the founding congress of Karapatan, 17 August 1995. Sison’s black-and-white distinction between an anti-human rights “reactionary” state and a pro-human rights “people’s democratic state” completely misses the point about human rights, which are safeguards for a citizen’s freedoms against the state’s arbitrary use of power. A state may claim to be pro-human rights, but its practice could very well prove the opposite.
19. Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF Secretariat, p. xxiv.
20. Human rights conventions such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights are legally binding on signatory states. Non-state entities such as revolutionary movements struggling to seize power sometimes declare their recognition of, and adherence to, these conventions. Instruments of the international humanitarian law of armed conflict such as the Geneva Conventions (specifically, common article 3) and Protocol II are binding on the warring parties in internal armed conflicts. (See Ingrid Detter, The Law of War, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, chap. 6.) Adherence to the principles of human rights and international humanitarian law may enhance the chances of non-state entities in gaining international recognition.
21. Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF Secretariat, p. xxvi.
22. See Quimpo, “The Revolutionary Left: Back to Center Stage?”, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 23-24 June 2001.
23. For more about how Bayan Muna secured the People Power Coalition’s endorsement, see Quimpo, “The Left, Elections and the Political Party System in the Philippines,” Critical Asian Studies, vol. 37, no. 1, March 2005.
24. The CPP, NPA and Sison, in his individual capacity, are on the U.S.-E.U. terrorist list. Neither the U.S. nor the E.U. has been able to freeze any CPP-NPA assets for the simple reason that the CPP-NPA does not open or maintain bank accounts under its own name anywhere in the world and it would be very difficult for the U.S.-E.U. to prove that accounts under the names of front persons actually belong to the CPP-NPA. The U.S.-E.U. could only go after the personal assets of Sison, who, as a legal resident in the Netherlands, maintained a bank account under his own name.
25. Maila Ager, “US: RP Must Request Terror Tag’s Removal,” The Sunday Times, 15 February 2004, p. 1.
26. Sarmiento, p. 12.
27. Even before the signing of CARHRIHL, the government’s commission of human rights, various Philippine human rights groups (including those aligned with the CPP-NPA-NDF) and international human rights organizations had already been monitoring and taking action on complaints of violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. With the GRP and the NDF signing CARHRIHL as co-equals and with Norway providing financial support to the JMC, CARHRIHL provides the NDF with politico-diplomatic advantages that the pre-CARHRIHL network on human rights work did not afford.
28. In a 7 December 2005 press statement, NDF spokesman Jalandoni declared: “As of December 2, 2005, there have been 454 complaints filed against GRP forces and 14 complaints against NDFP forces.”
29. In contrast, many former NDs, now affiliated with various non-governmental organizations and people’s organizations like T’bak, and left parties and groups like Akbayan, Partido ng Manggagawa, Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Managgagawa - Pilipinas and Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa - Mindanao, have endorsed the initiative of the Peace Advocates for Truth, Justice and Healing (PATH) for an impartial investigation into the anti-DPA purges by a Truth Commission consisting of well-respected jurists.
30. “Links of Counterrevolutionary Groups with Trotskyites and Social Democrats,” Ang Bayan, 7 December 2004.
31. Sison, “Complaints Should be Submitted to the NDFP-JMC and Not to the NDFP Chief Political Consultant,” press statement, 27 December 2004. Article 4 of Part III of CARHRIHL states: “The persons liable for violations and abuses of human rights shall be subject to investigation and, if evidence warrants, to prosecution and trial.” Nowhere, however, does CARHRIHL actually state that the NDF has the authority to arrest, investigate, prosecute and try human rights violators. In the GRP-NDF talks, the issue has been a very contentious one. The GRP Peace Secretariat has this account of the “backroom negotiations” in October 1998: “The GRP asserted its sole authority to arrest, prosecute and punish human rights violators in the implementation of the Agreement. The NDF, on the other hand, demanded that its judicial and legal processes be allowed to co-exist with that of the GRP. The GRP rejected this position as this demand not only impinges on the constitutional sovereignty of the Republic but would also institutionalize the divisiveness caused by the armed conflict.” (Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF Secretariat, p. XXVI.) International human rights groups have long denounced the CPP-NPA-NDF’s “people’s courts” as a clear violation of international humanitarian law. According to the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the “people’s courts” do not meet the standards set in Protocol II since they are neither regularly constituted nor independent of the ruling authority, and they do not give the defendant the means to present an adequate defense. (Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Out of Control: Militia Abuses in the Philippines, New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1990, pp. 15-16.)
32. Randolf David, “Governance by Patronage,” Philippine Daily Inquirer, 14 March 2004, p. 5.
33. Among the Philippine organizations and groups active in peace advocacy are the Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute, Third World Studies Center, Sulong CARHRIHL, All-Out Peace Groups, Initiatives for International Dialogue, Institute for Popular Democracy, Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement and Task Force Detainees of the Philippines. Among the foreign or international entities supportive of the peace process are the government and certain NGOs of Norway, European Parliament, International Alert and World Council of Churches.
34. For more on “contested democracy,” see Quimpo, “Oligarchic Patrimonialism, Bossism, Electoral Clientelism and Contested Democracy in the Philippines,” Comparative Politics, vol. 37, no. 2, January 2005.
35. In the past several decades, a number of Third World revolutionary movements have entered into peace negotiations with the governments they sought to overthrow, and did eventually manage to get to power or draw very close to it. It would be very difficult, however, for the CPP-NPA-NDF to follow in their footsteps. The National Liberation Front (NLF), which, together with the North Vietnamese government, entered into negotiations with the U.S. and the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese government in the 1960s and 70s, achieved military victory in 1975. The NLF, however, received massive military, economic and political support from the Soviet bloc and China - something that the CPP-NPA-NDF can no longer avail of in the post-Cold War world. Peace talks in South Africa led to the dismantling of apartheid and the coming to power of the African National Congress (ANC). Since the signing of the peace accord in El Salvador in 1992, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) has become the country’s main legal opposition party and has come close to winning in national elections on several occasions. The ANC and the FMLN managed to mobilize considerable popular support and enthusiasm for their positions in the peace negotiations. In the course of these talks, both of them broke decisively with Stalinism, embraced pluralist democracy and ended their armed struggle even without having yet attained political power - actions that are anathema to the CPP-NPA-NDF.