Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (Facebook)


Calls from congressmen to restart peace negotiations with Communist Party of the Philippines, New People’s Army, and National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF) are beginning to snowball. On Sunday, June 11, it was Cagayan de Oro City 2nd district Rep. Rufus Rodriguez's turn to prod the Philippine government into restarting such peace talks with the CPP and its related factions. He made this appeal even as newly-installed Department of National Defense (DND) Secretary Gibo Teodoro said that he personally was not in favor of resuming negotiations with the communists. Rodriguez said it was unfortunate that the defense chief has taken such a personal stand. “I hope that he reconsiders that position, because this long-running communist insurgency has resulted in the loss of many Filipino lives - communist guerrillas, soldiers and civilians, including children. Just one Filipino the government could save by talking with the communists is worth all the effort,” he said. ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro of the militant Makabayan bloc had earlier urged Teodoro to do the same, right after he was announced as the next DND head honcho. The NPA is the military wing of the CPP, while the NDF is its negotiating arm. Rodriguez says if the military’s claims that the communists are dwindling in number were true, the state is morally obliged to get them to talk peace instead of "finishing them off", as one officer has put it. “I am sure that these CPP-NPA-NDF remnants would want to enjoy life in peace with their families, instead of getting exterminated by the overwhelming military power of the state. They should realize that their dream of more 50 years of taking over the government has remained just that - an impossible dream,” he said, The Mindanaoan reminded Teodoro that many towns in his home province of Tarlac and neighboring Pampanga were hotbeds of communist insurgency in the past. “Look where Tarlac and Pampanga are now. They are growth areas, they are booming because there are no more communists there and because the government built infrastructure like roads in these provinces,” he noted. He said he was sure this is also the case in communities in Visayas and Mindanao state forces, including the police, have liberated from communist insurgency. “Entrepreneurship and economic activities thrive in communities where there is peace,” he stressed. He added that said Teodoro should convince communist stragglers to follow the example of his province mate, the famous NPA founder Bernabe Buscayno, alias Kumander Dante, who had given up armed struggle in favor of enjoying civilian life as a farmer and farmers' cooperative organizer in his hometown of Capas in Tarlac.