A milestone has been achieved in the pursuit of peace with armed Muslim groups advocating for self-determination with the enactment of the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL), formerly referred to as the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL). Although certain crucial provisions contained in the Bangsamoro Transition Commission version of the BBL had been watered down or altogether removed, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the insurgent group that spearheaded the peace negotiations that led to the drafting of the BBL, has expressed satisfaction with the final BBL version as a step forward in achieving full self-determination by the Bangsamoro. Meantime, the prospects for advancing peace with the Communist Party of the Philippines, its armed force, the New People’s Army, and its front of sympathizers, the National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) have become dimmer with the indefinite postponement of the resumption of the peace negotiations scheduled on June 28, 2018 and the government’s decision to instead pursue localized peace talks. There is much ambivalence in the government’s commitment to non-violence as a principle to guide its efforts in ending long-running insurgencies in the country. On the one hand, it has shown political will in enacting the BOL and the president has expressed openness to engage in talks with the Abu Sayyaf. On the other hand, despite the president’s rhetoric, the government has been vacillating in its pursuit of peace talks with the NDFP and has relied mostly on a purely militaristic approach to dealing with Islamic extremist groups.
Updated as of July 31, 2018
Photo by Edward G. Martens via Wikipedia Commons
CATHOLIC SOCIAL PRINCIPLE:
Peace and Active Non-violence
Public policy and government programs must promote peace not as the suppression of conflict, but as the result of constructive dialogue and holistic solutions which treat conflicting parties as human beings and address the root causes of conflict.
Within the first few months of President Duterte’s term, peace initiatives aiming at the final cessation of hostilities were made with the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army/National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF). Negotiating panels from the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) signed the supplemental agreement for a Joint Monitoring Committee on the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect of Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law as negotiations move towards other substantive agenda. The two parties completed a fourth round of peace talks in April 2017.
After months of suspension and the threat of complete breakdown, the peace talks between the Philippine government and the NDFP are once again a possibility as the parties return to the negotiating table to end the 50-year old communist insurgency. On April 4, 2018, the president announced that he is ordering the resumption of the stalled peace talks between the government and the CPP-NPA-NDF.
Government chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III said he talked to Fidel Agcaoili, chief negotiator of the NDFP, who said that the NDFP was not setting any new conditions. Bello said the president’s conditions, namely a stop to all military offensives and collection of revolutionary taxes, and the dropping of any demand for a coalition government, were also welcomed by the NDFP. NDFP Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison also welcomed the resumption of peace talks with the government and reiterated the movement’s sincerity to negotiate and forge with the government comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms, implement corollary agreements to amnesty and the release of all political prisoners, and to have coordinated unilateral ceasefires.
Written agreements that are supposed to form part of an interim peace agreement had been signed by the chairpersons of the GRP and the NDFP negotiating panels, DOLE Secretary Silvestre Bello and Fidel Agcaoili, respectively, and witnessed by the Royal Norwegian special envoy Ambassador Idun Aarak Tevdt on June 9. This would have been an important step towards advancing the peace negotiations that had been stalled several times. After the president announced the cancellation of the June 28 resumption of the peace talks, NDFP Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison urged the two negotiating panels to release to the public and the media the written and signed agreements of June 9 and 10. This call by Sison and the government’s plan to expand the “peace table” and conduct consultations with different sectors and stakeholders, if genuinely pursued, would bring about greater transparency and inclusiveness in the discussion of socio-economic and political reforms being contemplated in the interim peace agreement. This would also ensure a broad constituency to support the final peace agreements if and when these are formally signed by both parties.
A joint resolution was crafted by local government and people’s organization leaders with the help of legislators, some of whom are known to be allied with the NDFP, during a two-day forum held on June 21, 2018 and organized by the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC). Participants of the second Mindanao Peace Forum for Legislators and Local Governments said they are alarmed by the “repeated cancellation” of the peace talks between the government and the NDFP especially at this crucial juncture where negotiations have delved into the Comprehensive Agreement of Social Economic Reforms (Caser) aimed at addressing “the structural inequalities underpinning both conflict and poverty in Mindanao.” One party-list legislator urged his fellow members of Congress to file bills and resolutions that “forward the cause of genuine agrarian reform, self-determination, national industrialization, the protection of human rights, providing workers a live wage, or shelter for the homeless.”
The government has opened the door for groups and individuals belonging to the NDFP to engage the government in localized peace talks. Through an executive order formalizing the guidelines for the conduct of localized peace talks, the President has approved three modes though which “local governments can engage with communists”: community dialogue, local peace package, and confidential dialogue. A local peace package involves the integration of former communists under the government’s peace incentive, without going through peace negotiations; while under a confidential dialogue, a communist rebel decides to lie low but not be documented as doing so, and cannot avail of the peace package program. The elements of the framework and guidelines are:
- Nationally orchestrated, centrally directed, and locally supervised and implemented
- Constitutional integrity and sovereignty will not be compromised
- Complete and genuine resolution of the local armed conflict covering the NPA, organs of political power, and Militia ng Bayan
- If there is a ceasefire, the constitutional mandate of the state to protect public safety, civilian welfare, critical infrastructure, and private properties; and the guarantee of rule of law and order will not be compromised at all times
- Provision of a full amnesty package based on disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration to mainstream society
- Must be consistent with Philippine Development Plan 2022 and Philippine Development Program 2040
The CPP, however, has rejected the Duterte administration’s localized peace talks, saying it is “doomed to fail” as it is simply “a worn-out psywar tactic to project victory to conceal the continuing failure of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to suppress the people’s resistance and stem the steady growth of the NPA.” It insists that the NDF, the CPP’s political wing, is the sole representative of communist rebels in peace negotiations with the government.
A local court has displayed independence in rendering a decision involving individuals accused by the government of being engaged in acts of terrorism. Four persons were cleared as “non-parties” to the government petition seeking to declare communist insurgents as “terrorists.” A Manila Regional Trial Court ruled that United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, former Bayan Muna Representative Satur Ocampo and NDFP consultant Rafael Baylosis are “non-parties” to the Department of Justice (DOJ) proscription petition. Human rights advocate Jose Melencio Molintas was also cleared from the DOJ petition filed in March 2018. The court noted that there was “nothing” in the petition that supported the accusation that Ocampo and Baylosis are incumbent officers, members or representatives of either the CPP or the NPA or that they have personal knowledge of, are engaged in, have committed or participated in, terrorist acts through the CPP-NPA.
The GRP had canceled the fifth round of formal talks that should have been held from May 26 to June 2, 2018. The Philippine government explained that the decision was reached when the CPP ordered the NPA to accelerate and intensify its attacks against the government due to President Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao. For its part, the NDFP countered that it could not agree with requests made by the GRP to ask the CPP-NPA to halt intensified armed operations, citing abuses by the AFP.
Armed confrontations between the military and the NPA continued in the absence of a general ceasefire agreement between the government and the NDF.
- Despite an earlier agreement between the GRP and the CPP-NPA to refrain from offensive operations against each other in Mindanao, the NPA attacked a police station in Maasin, Iloilo in June 2017, causing Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza to lament: “It is disheartening to note that such attacks provide a negative impact in our mutual commitment with the NDF to provide that enabling environment conducive to the continuation of peace negotiations with them.”
- On July 18, 2017, the NPA carried out a series of attacks in the Caraga region in protest against the plan to extend martial law to the end of 2017.
- It also attacked the Dole-Stanfilco plantation in Tago, Surigao del Sur, destroying six hectares of banana farm and burning six minitrucks.
- On July 19, 2017, members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) were reported to have had an encounter with the NPA in Arakan, North Cotabato. After the alleged encounter between the NPA and the PSG in Arakan, North Cotabato, Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza announced that backchannel talks in Europe with the NDF, scheduled within the next few days, had been cancelled.
“This war that you are fighting, I was listening to you when I was a student. That was 50 years ago. Let us renew the fighting for another 50 years. If it’s what you want.”
President Duterte, July 21, 2017
In his July 24, 2017 State of the Nation Address (SONA), the President expressed his refusal to continue the peace talks with the NDFP, citing the latest attacks staged by the NPA against the Philippine military and police, including the PSG. In the post-SONA press conference, the president stated that he would welcome a call from the NDFP to terminate the peace talks and that he would let the 50-year war started by the rebel group continue for another 50 years. In the same speech, he declared that he would add some 20,000 soldiers to the army to be mobilized as a “counter-measure,” and another 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers to be deployed as Special Action Forces (SAF) in the “cities and environs… to meet the future threats coming our way either from within and outside the country.”
In early October 2017, a few days after again dismissing any prospects for the resumption of the talks. the president accused the CPP-NPA-NDF of entering a conspiracy with the opposition Liberal Party (LP) to remove him from power. The LP and the CPP have denied any such alliance and have interpreted the accusation as an attempt to distract the public from other issues, such as controversies over corruption and drug smuggling allegations involving the president’s family, or as the prelude to a general clampdown on the opposition. Later that month, Duterte accused the CPP-NPA-NDF of “conspiracy” and “committing rebellion.”
The fifth round of talks in the Netherlands scheduled on November 22, 2017 was cancelled again. On November 23, the president signed Proclamation No. 360 series of 2017, officially terminating the peace negotiations with the CPP-NPA-NDF. The president likewise directed the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) and the GRP Panel for Peace Talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF to cancel peace talks and meetings with the CPP-NPA-NDF.
“In spite of the best efforts exerted by the administration, the CPP-NPA-NDFP failed to show its sincerity and commitment in pursuing genuine and meaningful peace negotiations as it engaged in acts of violence and hostilities, endangering the lives and properties of innocent people.”
Proclamation No. 360, series of 2017
In December 2017 President Duterte signed Proclamation No. 374 series of 2017, declaring the CPP as well as the NPA as terrorist organizations under Republic Act No. 10168, the Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012. The NDF was not mentioned in the proclamation. Presidential Spokesperson Atty. Harry Roque attributed this action to the “continued violent acts of the CPP-NPA which sow and create a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace.”
A petition filed by the DOJ at the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 19 in early March 2018 asked the court to declare some 600 alleged members of the CPP, among them the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a former Philippine lawmaker, and four former Catholic priests, as “terrorists.” Also included in the petition were 18 top leaders of the CPP, including founder Jose Maria Sison and peace negotiator Luis Jalandoni, both based in the Netherlands for three decades, and former Bayan Muna party list representative Satur Ocampo. By declaring groups and individuals as terrorists, the government would be able to monitor them more closely, track finances, and curb access to resources, among other measures. The tagging of individuals as terrorists by the government could potentially put in danger the lives of dissidents and critics of the government even when they make legitimate criticisms against acts of the government.
After directing government negotiators to resume backchannel talks with the NDFP, the president, on June 15, 2018, called off the scheduled resumption of peace negotiations on June 28, 2018 in Oslo, Norway. The NDFP attributes to the president a lack of sincerity in pursuing the peace talks and considers this development a major setback in arriving at a peaceful resolution of the 50 year-long insurgency. Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza explained that the GRP is looking for an “enabling environment” and wants to engage a “bigger peace table” in order for the peace negotiations with the communists to succeed. The president instructed the OPAPP to conduct public consultations and coordinate with the private sector to ensure that the agreements agreed at the negotiation table earns public support. NDFP Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison criticized the president for cancelling the scheduled talks saying, “It is starkly clear that the GRP under Duterte is not interested in serious peace negotiations with the NDFP.” He pointed out that the enabling environment referred to by the Dureza is an indefinite ceasefire amounting to the surrender of revolutionary forces. He further accused the government of “breaking the provision in the GRP-NDFP Joint Agreement on the Security and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) which requires formal negotiations in a foreign neutral venue and therefore putting the negotiations under the control and under duress of an emerging fascist dictatorship and its armed minions.” The president has subsequently expressed his preference for the talks to be held in the Philippines.
The re-scheduling of the resumption of the peace talks could further result in the escalation of the armed conflict which in turn would bring about massive displacement of civilians in the countryside, disruption of livelihoods, fear and trauma especially among women and children.
Efforts from certain sectors of the government to resume the peace negotiations are being countered by the mutual distrust between the armed groups of both the government and the NDFP. The government has accused the NPA, the NDFP’s military arm, of taking advantage of the peace talks “to regroup and to strengthen their ranks.” There is much speculation that the military establishment was behind the president’s decision to cancel the resumption of the peace talks.
The NDFP for its part has accused the government of planning to mount bigger offensives against the NPA in the absence of a ceasefire. The CPP said Duterte wants the AFP to rush its all-out offensives against the NPA, claiming that the AFP has recruited at least 5,000 troops last year and seeks to add 10,000 more until the end of the year. The rebel group alleges that Duterte is enabling the AFP to employ Marawi-style tactics of employing an overwhelming force to wage all-out war against civilian populations in order to claim and control their land.
Influential members of the President’s Cabinet appear to oppose the resumption of the peace talks with the NDFP. Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana is inclined to recommend the termination of peace negotiations with the NDFP, claiming that the insurgent group is bent on ousting President Duterte. He noted that the CPP and the NDFP held their “largest People’s Congress” in October to November 2016 and Central Committee Plenum in December 2016 during which it called a unilateral ceasefire. According to Lorenzana, “during these two occasions, [the communists] crafted a three-year plan to advance the revolutionary movement that included the planning for the Oust Duterte Movement if [President Duterte] will not agree to a coalition government.”
The president signed the landmark Republic Act No. 11054 or the Bangsamoro Organic Law (BOL) on July 26, 2018. The signing came eight days after the bicameral conference committee finalized the bill following days of heated discussions. Duterte had certified the bill as urgent, paving the way for the speedy passage of the measure in Congress. The law is the culmination of a peace deal signed between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and past administrations.
The 28-member bicameral conference committee approved on July 28, 2018 the reconciled version of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), which was renamed the Organic Law for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (OLBARMM). The law replaces the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) with the BARMM which would have greater fiscal autonomy, a regional government, parliament, and justice system. Jointly presided by Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri and House Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas, the bicameral panel sought to reconcile contentious provisions of House Bill No. 6475 and Senate Bill No. 1717. The new law would create a new political entity in Mindanao to replace the current ARMM and would have greater fiscal autonomy, a regional government, parliament, and justice system. The region would be composed of the current ARMM (Tawi-Tawi, Sulu, Basilan, Maguindanao, and Lanao del Sur) pending a regional plebiscite. Also included in the Bangsamoro region are six municipalities of Lanao del Norte, the chartered cities of Cotabato and Isabela, and 39 barangays of Cotabato provided that the province and their municipalities, respectively, vote to lose jurisdiction over them. These areas previously voted to be included in the ARMM, but their “mother units” voted against it. The law has an opt-in provision, allowing areas adjacent to the region to join the Bangsamoro, with a petition of at least 10% of their voters.
It is hoped that the law would be ratified through a plebiscite in November 2018, which will be followed by the president’s appointment of the members of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority by December 2018 or January 2019. Despite criticisms that the final BBL version has watered down several important provisions in the version by the Bangsamoro Transition Committee (BTC), at least one legislator, Anak Mindanao Rep. Amihilda Sangcopan, believes that “Moros will have something better than the status quo that is the ARMM.” MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal also commented, “We are satisfied. It is not a perfect law, but it is good to start with. It is very important to us.”
Among the most contentious provisions of the new law is that which seeks to include six municipalities of Lanao del Norte and 39 barangays of North Cotabato in the Bangsamoro, provided that the province and their municipalities, respectively, vote in favor of the inclusion of these local government units. These areas previously voted to be included in the ARMM but failed to join the ARMM when their mother units voted otherwise. The BTC version had allowed the inclusion of these municipalities and barangays without the concurrence of their mother units. The BOL also requires the concurrence of the mother units for any other contiguous areas which will have at least 10% voting in favor of inclusion in the plebiscite to be held to ratify the BOL. Such provision in the BOL fails to uphold the principle of subsidiarity.
The BOL does not include in Article IV on General Principles and Policies the right to self-determination, a key principle advocated by the BTC to be incorporated in the new law.
On October 17, 2017 the president declared Marawi free from “terrorist influence,” marking the official beginning of the city’s rehabilitation.
The battle of Marawi has been extremely costly in terms of the loss of human lives and destruction of property of cultural and economic value. While the government and the military can claim victory in having neutralized the Maute rebels by killing their leaders, remnants of the militant group reportedly remain in Marawi and so does the risk of radicalization of Moros and youth as the conditions of the Marawi residents are not likely to improve in the short-term.
As of October 17, when the President announced the “liberation of Marawi,” a total of 847 Maute fighters, 163 government troops, and 47 civilians had been killed since the battle between government troops and Maute fighters began on May 23. Most displaced residents still cannot return to their homes until the military has finished clearing Marawi of terrorists and explosives.
On October 23, 2017, days after the President’s declaration of the liberation of Marawi, Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., deputy commander of Joint Task Group Ranao, said that the wives of the fighters have chosen to carry on the fight of their husbands, signaling the possible spread of Maute elements and their ideology into the civilian population of the area.
New armed clashes erupted between the AFP and remnants of the Maute-ISIS group led by Humam Abdul Romato Najid, alias Abu Dar in Tubaran, Lanao del Sur starting June 14. Abu Dar is the new emir of ISIS in Southeast Asia who reportedly replaced Isnilon Hapilon who was killed in Marawi. Air strikes were carried out in the mountainous areas of Tubaran. Based on initial information from the provincial government of Lanao del Sur, around 500 families from Tubaran had been evacuated. In the town of Pagayawan, around 255 families were displaced, with 57 families currently in evacuation centers, and some others trapped. A total of 723 families, or 3,571 individuals from Tubaran and Pagayawan have fled to Binidayan town. Tubaran town is near the town of Butig, the stronghold of the Maute-ISIS group. As of June 20, more than 11,000 residents from Lanao del Sur have been forced to flee their homes following armed clashes between the military and the ISIL-linked Maute armed group.
According to a military official, the Maute Group only has a few remaining fighters, but has stepped up its recruitment efforts, enticing the youth with their loot from Marawi and funding from Abu Sayyaf bandits and their foreign allies. This recruitment is steadily gaining ground partly due to the slow progress in the rehabilitation of Marawi.
The president has expressed an openness to engage in peace talks with the Abu Sayyaf. Abu Sayyaf members have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in the Middle East.
The Philippines ranked 138th of 163 nations in the report of the Global Peace Index for 2017. It ranked 18th of 19 nations in Asia, beating only North Korea. It was among the countries in the world that registered the largest deterioration in peace and also registered the second largest deterioration in Asia. The report reads:
The Philippines’ overall score has deteriorated since Duterte took office in June 2016. A bloody war against drugs and crime has been extended nationwide and is reflected in a deterioration of the country’s Societal Safety and Security indicators. The Philippines homicide rate, incarceration rate and number of deaths from internal conflict have all deteriorated. The extrajudicial killings of alleged criminals, drug mules and users has significantly increased security risks, even for ordinary citizens who could potentially get caught in the crossfire.
There has been a nominal improvement in the Philippines’ ranking in the Global Peace Index (GPI) from 138th in 2017 to 137th in 2018. Nevertheless, violent crime, terrorism impact, political instability and political terror all deteriorated across the Asia-Pacific region, including the Philippines. In fact, the GPI Report of 2018 said that:
…the Philippines suffered particularly badly as President Duterte continued his assault on alleged drug dealers and from the five-month battle between government forces and Islamic militants who took over the city of Marawi, resulting in almost 1,200 militants, government forces and civilians killed. Despite representing only 5 per cent of the total index, there is a strong correlation (R=0.854) between political terror scores and overall GPI scores in the Asia-Pacific.” The Philippines remained the second least peaceful country in the Asia-Pacific, second only to North Korea which ranked 150th in the GPI.