End of peace negotiations and broken promises

Midway into its six-year term, the Aquino administration is now sending signals that clearly bode ill for the Filipino people’s quest for justice, peace and meaningful change.

One is the recent unilateral declaration by Alex Padilla, chair of the Philippine government peace panel (GPH), of the termination of the peace talks between the GPH and the National Democratic Front (NDF). Another is the continuing failure to bring to justice the men in uniform behind the wave of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances—as in the outstanding case of Jonas Burgos, where strong evidence point to military involvement.

There has been a complete failure to successfully prosecute members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines who have committed grave human rights abuses during both the Aquino and Arroyo administrations.

When President Aquino visited New Zealand in October 2012, the Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa (PSNA), Wellington Kiwi Pinoy (WKP), and Auckland Philippines Solidarity (APS) sent him a message: “We don’t like our milk going to a country where activists are tortured and killed.”

The government’s unilateral termination of peace talks with the NDF bodes ill for human rights. This major setback in the peace talks is a serious midterm crisis which will likely lead to more brazen human rights violations in the next three years of the Aquino administration. It will encourage intensified military operations victimizing community activists and ordinary civilians.

International human rights watchdog groups have already expressed disappointment over the President’s failure to keep his promise to end the culture of impunity in the Philippines. Under Mr. Aquino’s presidency, the number of extrajudicial killings has reached an alarming record of 137 victims; also on record, as documented by human rights group Karapatan, are 72 victims of torture, 498 cases of illegal arrests and 30,260 victims of forced evacuation.

When PSNA, WKP and APS hosted the peace speaking tour “Justice and Liberation: The Road to Peace in the Philippines” in November 2010,  Luis Jalandoni of the NDF peace panel stressed: “The peace negotiations should address the roots of the armed conflict through fundamental economic, social and political reforms which will pave the way to a just and lasting peace.”

President Aquino has three more years to disprove the growing criticisms about his administration’s human rights record and its sincerity in the peace process. If he fails to deliver on his promises to bring about better lives for the poor, Filipinos and the international community will remember him as a president—though the son of two of the Philippines’ icons of democracy—who only proved to be another big disappointment.

—MURRAY HORTON,

secretary, Philippines Solidarity Network of Aotearoa, Box 2450 Christchurch,

New Zealand