POEM FOR EUGENE

So you are already in Baguio City

I heard it is freezing cold there

Wise of you to leave Manila's fumes

And the stench of hopelessness here

I itch to start the ignition or grab a cab

To Cubao and hop on a Victory bus

You see, like you, I know so well

The smell of pine from the backyard

And the red poinsettias begging notice

Against the sunflowers in yellow bloom

I miss the strong aroma of pancakes

From my doting mother's kitchen

And the freshly brewed Kalinga coffee

From my father's aged copper kettle

I hear my mother telling me to call

My classmates to carol in our home

But that is a voice from decades ago

She lost it when Daddy was called away

I can't start the ignition; I can't take that cab

Mom took my Baguio to the Great Beyond

(I wrote this after I got a text message from former National Commission on Indigenous Peoples' Chairperson Eugenio Insigne -Mng Kenny to me and to family, or Eugene to his friends. He asked if I was in Baguio. He also said he wasn’t going up north from Manila. His mother died that year. Since then, things changed.)

WHY THE PEACE TALKS WITH THE COMMUNISTS WILL SUCCEED

Atty. Alex Padilla, Chair of the government peace panel during President Benigno Aquino’s time, predicted that the peace talks that the Duterte government is having with the communists will fail. He claims this is because the National Democratic Front peace panel members  talking with the government do not represent the New Peoples Army. The NPA has been waging an armed revolution for almost half a century.

But we predict differently. We predict that the talks will succeed. Here are the reasons why:

Upon his assumption to office on June 30, 2017, Pres. Rodrigo Roa Duterte  never departed from his hopes expressed during the campaign that he wanted the armed rebellion to end. In every occasion he addresses the public, he says, “I want to be known as the President of peace. I want the rebels to come down from the hills and enjoy lives of comfort with their loved ones.”

Unlike Presidents before him, Duterte, who self-identifies as a socialist/leftist  had broken bread many times with communists and fathoms their issues. He knows what the root cause of the armed conflict is: the social injustice stemming from  inequitable distribution of wealth perpetuated by the oligarchic control of the system.    He recognizes that the armed struggle will end if the root cause is addressed through socio-economic reforms. In this respect, he and the NDF are on the same page.

Pres. Duterte's  grasp of the real issues is coupled with a like-minded GRP panel made up of people who truly hanker for peace as the presence of justice. This is a great recipe for successful talks with the NDF. Thus, when Pres Duterte cancelled the peace talks last February, GRP peace panel members  themselves knocked on heaven's door for resumption. In meetings of the GRP Reciprocal Working Group on Political and Constitutional Reforms (RWG-PCR) of which I am a member,  no one ever questioned the sincerity and motives of the other side. I have information this is true of the other Groups.

The GRP   peace panel,  on the one hand, and the NDF panel, on the other,  mutually respect and trust each other. They may argue a lot, disagree on matters,  and even threaten to, or actually stop talking to each other like family members do. But they all believe that  the peace talks must keep going and reach their logical conclusion: the end of hostilities and the guarantee there will be social justice. Talks must go on even while there is fighting (although the two sides just signed an interim ceasefire agreement).

On Padilla’s claim that the NDF does not represent the NPA,  I cannot speak for the NDF and its relations with the NPA. But the NDF team seems totally committed to the peace process. The NDF gave assurance  that the rebels would lay down their arms once guarantees are in place to confront and address the economic issues which form the radix of the armed conflict. If the GRP is forthright in its dealings with the NDF, it has to believe the claim. The NDF has yet to give reason for it to be dismissed as the boy who cried wolf.

The GRP panel headed by Padilla is different from the current one which genuinely hopes for an end to the armed struggle. GRP Panel Chair DOLE Sec. Silvestre “Bebot”  Bello is no Padilla. Sec. Bello  negotiates from a position of sincerity believing that peace is possible. If you start your negotiation with the mindset that the other party is only pulling your leg,  you are in bad faith in agreeing to a talk. You are insincere. If you do not believe the other party, why even think of talking? It is a waste of time and money. It raises false hopes to the people who want the armed rebellion to end. It raises false hopes for the countryside where development has been stunted because it is the host of the armed conflict.

It should be  no wonder that Padilla's panel achieved nothing. Maybe, he is now trying to justify why the peace talks between the GRP panel he led and the NDF was  a total failure. But the truth is the failure in the past was the government’s insincerity by which it was itself a peace saboteur.

So far, in just less than a year, the peace talks leaped much, much farther than they ever have in the past two decades. Substantial gains have been achieved. Padilla should not douse ice-cold water. This might be the Filipino people's last chance for a just and lasting peace. Let us all hope together.

Saboteurs and peace spoilers must lay off. This is not about you. This is about the Filipino people and their dream of just and lasting peace..