President tells communists to take efforts to restart negotiations seriously or face consequencesPhilippine church leaders welcome Duterte’s call for peace
Joe Torres, Manila, Philippines
December 9, 2019
An ecumenical church group in the Philippines has welcomed last week’s call by President Rodrigo Duterte to try and revive peace talks with rebels to finally end half a century of communist insurgency.
In a joint statement, Catholic and Protestant leaders said they “welcomed and celebrated” the president’s decision to start “back-channel negotiations” for the possible resumption of formal talks.
“The [Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform] summit hopes that these developments will pave the way for the immediate resumption of formal peace talks,” read the church leaders’ statement.
The ecumenical group was holding its annual “summit on peace,” which brought together 110 church leaders from all over the country, when it was informed about Duterte’s move last week.
They urged the government and the rebels “to work toward the resumption of formal peace talks to address the roots of the armed conflict.” They called for the immediate signing of a comprehensive agreement on social and economic reforms and a bilateral ceasefire. A call for the immediate release of political prisoners was also made.
Faith communities, meanwhile, were called on to expand efforts to conduct “creative activities and dialogue … to further broaden support for the resumption of formal peace talks.”
“We vow to continue to use our faith resources and moral leadership to further expand the work of [the peace platform] throughout the Philippines,” said the group. “We will not stop and we will break the walls between religions and build bridges instead.”
Duterte, who terminated peace negotiations with the communists in 2017, warned rebels to take the talks seriously or the government would continue its current campaign to stamp out the insurgency.
He said he wants formal peace negotiations to be held in the Philippines, a demand that was immediately dismissed by exiled Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison.
“I think there needs to be several steps before we could reach a point of having peace negotiations in the Philippines,” Sison said in a television interview from the Netherlands.
He said Duterte could start the process by adopting goodwill measures to create a climate for peace negotiations, such as by releasing political prisoners on humanitarian grounds in the spirit of Christmas.
“I think the president is intelligent enough to see there is also benefit for him and his administration that peace negotiations be renewed,” said Sison.
The Philippine government held talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines from 2016 to 2017 in Oslo, Norway. They broke down when Duterte accused the communists of violating a ceasefire.
In December 2018, he ordered the creation of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict to hold “localized peace talks.” However, police and military operations against communist rebels continued.
Church leaders, meanwhile, said there was a “shared recognition” that dialogue and peace talks are urgently needed but “effectively unworkable” when the government “demonized” the rebels.
“Reconstituting the peace panels [of both sides] and the resumption of the peace talks is the only way forward,” said the church leaders, mostly bishops. The Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform comprises the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, National Council of Churches in the Philippines, Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines, Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches,’ and the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum in an effort to work “for a just and enduring peace by supporting the peace process.”
