Kevin V. Mizon: The second part of the agenda in the peace process is the Comprehensive Agreement on Socioeconomic Reforms (CASER). What are the exact, specific socioeconomic reforms that Communist Party of the Philippines–New People’s Army–National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP–NPA–NDFP) is heavily pushing for?
Jose Maria Sison: The socio-economic reforms include mainly upholding economic sovereignty and conserving the national patrimony, land reform and national industrialization, defending the rights of workers, promoting the people’s livelihood, cancellation of odious debts, respecting the right of ancestral domain of indigenous peoples and equitable economic and trade relations with all foreign countries for the purpose of development.
KVM: The third part of the agenda is the Comprehensive Agreement on Political and Constitutional Reforms (CAPCR). What are the exact, specific political and constitutional reforms that the CPP–NPA–NDFP is heavily pushing for?
JMS: The political and constitutional reforms include upholding national sovereignty and abrogation of unequal treaties, agreements and arrangements, empowerment of the working people, gender equality, respect for the right of self-determination of the indigenous peoples, a patriotic, democratic and people-oriented system of education and culture, elimination of corruption, overhaul of the electoral system, revamp of the judicial system and independent foreign policy for development and world peace.
KVM: As a general question, what are the different scenarios of the CPP–NPA–NDFP’s future? First, if the current round of negotiations finishes successfully in the three-year timeline, and secondly, if it doesn’t.
JMS: If the peace negotiations are successfully completed in three years’ time or sometime after, then the CPP, NPA and NDFP will abide by the mutual agreements with the [Government of the Republic of the Philippines] (GPH) and there shall be just and lasting peace on a good foundation. If the GPH tries to impose capitulation and violation of principles on the aforesaid revolutionary forces, then the armed conflict shall continue and shall probably escalate to a new and higher level.KVM: How viable is the armed struggle right now? Detractors of the CPP–NPA–NDFP believe that your army’s physical strength isn’t enough to overthrow the government.
JMS: Since the Second Great Rectification Movement in the 1990s, which repudiated and rectified major errors in the 1980s, the CPP, NPA and NDFP have become not just viable but far stronger than before. Of course, the armed strength of the NPA is not yet enough to overthrow the entire ruling system. But the NPA and other revolutionary forces are now carrying out a plan to advance from strategic defensive to strategic stalemate. The broad united front of revolutionary forces and legal opposition forces has high potential of overthrowing at any time a particular administration that is too repressive or too corrupt and thus hated by the people, like the regimes of Marcos and Estrada.
KVM: In the over 40 rounds of peace talks conducted and in the numerous interruptions, where would you say was the GPH’s at fault? Alternately, where would you say the CPP–NPA–NDFP was at fault?
JMS: Since formal opening of GPH–NDFP peace negotiations in Brussels in June 1995, sixteen years ago, the GPH has been responsible for interruptions amounting to 14 years under GPH declarations of suspension, collapse and the [Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees] JASIG’s termination, aggravating GPH violations of agreements. If one misconstrues the ceasefire agreement in 1986-87 as the beginning of peace negotiations, the GPH has been responsible for interruptions amounting to some 22 years out of 24 years. Remember that Cory Aquino unsheathed the sword of war in 1987 and swung her sword in vain for so many years against the NPA. The NDFP has never made any declaration of suspension, collapse and JASIG termination to interrupt the peace negotiations. Only twice has it declared postponement of the formal talks of the panels. The first one was in August 2004 when it asked for postponement of formal talks to allow the GPH the time to fulfill its obligation to release JASIG-protected persons. The second one was in June 2011 when it called for postponement once more to allow the GPH the time to release JASIG-protected persons.
KVM: The Aquino administration’s Oplan Bayanihan is a widely debated about issue as a sugarcoated counterinsurgency program. It’s arguably highly similar to Arroyo’s Oplan Bantay Laya. Any response to this program of the current administration?
JMS: Oplan Bayanihan is the same dog as Oplan Bantay Laya. The only difference is that Oplan Bayanihan is even more deceptive as it becomes more brutal. It misrepresents its military campaigns of suppression as peace and development operations and its human rights violations as defense of human rights and human security. It is guided by US advisors who believe that more effective psywar results in more effective intelligence and military operations. The Aquino regime is continuing basically the same policies of the Arroyo regime. It is also the same dog of the US and the local big compradors and landlords. It tries to present itself as better than the previous regime through sheer propaganda and it insults the people by trying to buwang-wang them through gimmicks. Aquino seems to be oblivious of the fact that there is now an unprecedentedly severe global and Philippine economic and social crisis which demands basic reforms. There is now a growing estimate by the revolutionary forces that the Aquino regime is not sincerely and seriously interested in the peace negotiations with the NDFP and is about to stop its masquerade about peace negotiations. Since the beginning, the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process and the GPH negotiating panel have been obsessed with seeking to disembowel and negate The Hague Joint Declaration, the JASIG and CARHRIHL, and not to pursue the negotiations on CASER.
KVM: In a nutshell, where do you think the Ateneo should situate itself in the ongoing people’s war?
JMS: I personally knew one Jesuit priest at the Ateneo who belonged to the Christians for National Liberation and supported the people’s war for national liberation and democracy. But I think that the Ateneo as an institution is in opposition to the ongoing people’s war. At any rate, it has been sober and decorous in dealing with the issue and seems to acknowledge the social roots of the armed conflict. Ateneo is not known to be strident, vicious or inquisitorial against faculty members and students who might be suspected by military authorities as sympathetic or even part of the revolutionary movement. You have to correct me if my observation from afar is wrong. When I was at the Ateneo in the fifties, one teacher of mine scorned the communist Casto Alejandrino and the anti-imperialist Claro Mayo Recto, both Ateneo alumni, and another teacher was proud of them in the classroom. When we took the papal social encyclicals in class, my Jesuit teachers focused on the theme of social justice and refrained from talking like rabid anti-communists. They also recognized the root causes of the armed conflict that had raged in the Philippines since the 1930s.
Jose Maria Sison is the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and is the chairperson of the International Coordinating Committee of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.
