Statement
November 23, 2024
It has been one year since the signing of the Joint Statement on resumption of peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The Joint Statement was signed by representatives of both parties on November 23, 2023, in Oslo, Norway, and promised a commitment by both sides to urgently address the socioeconomic problems that drive Filipinos to take up armed struggle against the government.
One year later, the International Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (ICHRP) is concerned about the sincerity of the GRP in striving for a genuine solution to the armed conflict. Based on the actions of the GRP and its Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in the year since the Joint Statement, there is no indication that the GRP will approach peace negotiations with a genuine respect for the previously agreed-upon framework with the NDFP, nor genuine concern for the needs of the Filipino people.
Peace negotiations between the GRP and NDFP have occurred on-and-off for decades. The original agreed upon framework and agenda was signed by both parties in The Hague Joint Declaration, which stipulates the objective of “resolving the roots of the armed conflict” and a four-point agenda: human rights and international humanitarian law, socio-economic reforms, political and constitutional reforms, and end of hostilities and disposition of forces. The peace talks were most recently terminated in 2017, early in the presidency of former president Rodrigo Duterte. The framework of the negotiations has always been based on an intent to address the socioeconomic root problems that drive people to take up arms on the side of the NDFP—widespread landlessness for the country’s majority, poverty, lack of industrialization that would develop the economy to provide jobs with decent wages, and foreign intervention and control of the country by the US and other capitalist countries.
In the decades since the peace negotiations began, several binding agreements have been signed by both parties, such as the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) which ensure the safety and welfare of individuals participating in the talks, and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL).
Despite the signing of the Joint Statement last year, violations of the JASIG and CARHRIHL by the GRP and AFP have not only continued but have escalated under the Marcos regime under its counterinsurgency program Oplan Kapantagan into 2024. The International People’s Tribunal in May 2024 showed that under Marcos Jr., the GRP and AFP have repeatedly violated international humanitarian law. This includes conflating civilian activists with armed combatants; as well as mistreating, torturing, and summarily executing prisoners of war or rebel soldiers who are hors de combat. In the name of “counter-insurgency”, the GRP deploys the AFP to rural communities across the Philippines to terrorize, intimidate, disappear, and worse, kill civilians including women and children. There have also been countless reports of indiscriminate bombing, including the use of white phosphorus bombs, on whole rural villages.
Although churches and civil society organizations have made resoundingly clear their desire for substantive and genuine solutions to the roots of the armed conflict, the GRP has sabotaged dialogue, especially in targeting peace consultants. There have been numerous cases of arrest and killing of designated NDFP peace consultants in the past year, such as the recent arrest of Simeon Naogsan, Porferio Tuna, and Wigberto Villarico in November 2024. The most recent case of a peace consultant’s murder involved Ariel Arbitrario, who was killed alongside two others hors de combat in Cagayan, northern Philippines, on September 11, 2024. Despite holding Document of Identification Number PP 978542 under the JASIG, Arbitrario was captured, tortured for a day, and subsequently executed.
In addition to violating the internationally recognized rules of war, the GRP has outwardly stated that its previously agreed-upon framework with the NDFP does not apply anymore. This means rejecting decades of formal negotiations and agreements between both sides. For the GRP, this one-sided disposal of the framework is justification for the arrest and killing of NDFP peace consultants who would otherwise be protected under the JASIG.
But just as these previous agreements were signed by both parties through formal procedures and observed by 3rd party governments, they can only be undone through a formal and bilateral process. The arbitrary and one-sided rejection of the Hague Joint Declaration and JASIG by the GRP does not justify attacks against protected peace consultants.
ICHRP reiterates its call to the GRP to sincerely strive for a just peace in the Philippines by ending violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, releasing all political prisoners including NDFP peace consultants, respecting and abiding by all previously signed agreements with the NDFP, and enacting socioeconomic changes to address the roots problems of the armed conflict, towards realizing a just and lasting peace for the Filipino people.
