Second thoughts on peace

When he accepted the post of chairman of the Philippine government negotiating panel for the ongoing but currently stalled peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front, Alex Padilla was confident that “now is the time for peace.” After all, the talks have been going on for 24 years, and new realities are starting to overrun old ideological assumptions. Moreover, said Padilla, “I believed that the NDF leadership in Utrecht (in the Netherlands) and in the Philippines believed in the sincerity of the Aquino government in arriving at a genuine peace agreement.” More important, he shared a lot of personal history with the men and women he and his panel would be facing across the negotiating table. A human rights lawyer, he had many CPP-NPA-NDF members among his clients. And he thought that they believed in his sincerity and would be more inclined to listen to him than perhaps previous government panel heads.

But now, says Padilla,  “I am having second thoughts about my assumptions.”

The talks, which formally opened in Oslo in January, were supposed to proceed apace and, it was hoped, would conclude with the signing of the fourth agreement—on “End of Hostilities and Disposition of Forces”—by June next year.

But last June, according to a government statement, “in a letter addressed to Chair Padilla and copy furnished the media at the same time, the NDF suddenly and unilaterally postponed the continuation of the bilateral talks on Caser (Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms) and WG-PCR (Working Groups on Political and Constitutional Reforms) citing the alleged failure of government to release all if not most of the NDF consultants.”

In a statement issued Sept. 10, NDF negotiating panel spokesperson Fidel Agcaoili said Padilla was “lying” when he said the NDF panel had agreed to go into formal negotiations before all or most of the NDF consultants had been released. This development, Agcaoili added, “proves what the NDF has been saying all along—that the GPH cannot be trusted to comply with mutually signed agreements, that it does not have word of honor, and that it has not been negotiating in good faith with the NDF.”

“Sa buong buhay ko, ngayon lang ako natawag na sinungaling at balasubas (In all my life, it’s only now that I’ve been called a liar and a deceiver),” fumes Padilla.

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At the root of the matter is the Jasig or Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees that “provides for safety and immunity guarantees to protect those who participate” in the peace negotiations and was signed in 1995. In particular it protects from surveillance, harassment, arrest, detention and “similar punitive actions” negotiators, consultants, staff, security and other personnel of the NDF, as well as members and observers of the Joint Monitoring Committee. This includes even individuals currently under detention.

In the talks held last January, the government reiterated its commitment to release 14 NDF listed consultants “before the second round of formal talks” although still subject to verification. Soon after, the NDF added four names: Danilo Badayos, Leopoldo Caloza, Alan Jazmines and Ramon Patriarca. The government panel, “as a confidence building measure,” committed to “undertake steps for the release of prisoners and detainees.” Five under the Jasig mantle have already in fact been released, while the NPA released two hostages, although they have recently taken four personnel of the BJMP.

But it was understood, said Padilla, that the matter of releases and Jasig coverage would be treated as “side issues” mainly to “avoid unwarranted disruptions of the negotiations.”

There was also the matter of the “verification process” in which the names and photographs of the NDF consultants, including those operating under aliases, were deposited in a safety deposit box in Utrecht to be opened only by three separate individuals representing all parties to the talks before prisoner release. But when the box was opened, it contained encrypted diskettes and not individual photographs, which the government contends was a violation of the Jasig agreement.

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In a primer, the government says that “the one and only priority concern of the NDF had always been ‘prisoner release’… Normally, prisoner release is the end result or outcome of any peace agreement; in this instance, however, it has hostaged the peace process itself.”

Says Padilla: “If they had only kept up their part of the process, by next June, there would have been no need for Jasig guarantees because everyone (linked to the NDF) would have been released.”

Padilla himself says that despite his resolve upon his assumption as chair of the government panel in the peace talks with the NDF, he is giving himself only three years after which he will walk out as government panel chair. “If after three years—after 24 years of talks—and nothing is still achieved, then I don’t think the other side is really interested in peace,” he observes.

Asked his expectations when he decided to join the negotiations, Padilla says he was prepared for “hard negotiations, for talks that would be candid, honest and frank.” What he did not expect, he says, was bargaining in bad faith and what seems to be an attempt to simply use the peace talks as a chance to release comrades behind bars (one recently released went underground, the military informed Padilla) and use the time to build up their forces.

His “greatest fear,” says Padilla, is that given the dwindling support and manpower of the NPA, with forces concentrated in isolated areas, once the negotiations irrevocably break down, “they shall be reduced to plain banditry, and how do you make peace with bandits?”