FILIPINO WORKERS in Hong Kong and Macau in China who are members of the patriotic group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan o BAYAN assailed the Duterte government for delaying the resumption of the peace talks with communist rebels.
They also strongly criticized Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza for his proposal to use Filipino workers abroad as so-called “peace ambassadors.” Dureza was quoted by Bayan as saying: “We have a concept and a way of how we can involve our OFWs and we call these the ‘Peace Ambassadors’.”
“OFWs will not be made as pawns for the dirty game to further delay the resumption of the peace talks. For what purpose is the government’s plan to make OFWs as peace ambassadors? To legitimise their bankrupt justifications for the delay if not, later on, outright cancellation of the peace talks?” asked Eman Villanueva, BAYAN chairman for Hong Kong and Macau.
In a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner, Villanueva said that just and lasting peace is what the Filipino people want.
“No ordinary Filipino will reject a just resolution of armed conflict rooted in abject poverty, landlessness, unemployment and massive inequality that deprive millions of Filipino people of a decent life and force them to work overseas. Only those who benefit from the tyrannical rule of the Duterte government – the warmongers, the oligarchs and the US imperialist – will oppose a just and lasting peace,” he said.
“We have much at stake in the talks for socio-economic reforms as such play a major part in the continuing forced migration and labor exportation of our people. We, overseas Filipinos, will not permit ourselves to be used to stall, or worse, abort the process just so Duterte can continue his bullish and tyrannical ways,” Villanueva added.
Duterte has temporarily suspended peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines or NDFP, the political wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed group, the New People’s Army, and sought the position of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and other stake holders; and to hold consultations across the country to ensure the provisions of the peace accord will not violate the Constitution.
Villanueva said Dureza was behind and the cause of the delay in the resumption of the peace talks. “The proposal of Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza to conduct a public consultation about the on-going peace negotiation between the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) and NDFP is a way of delaying if not completely derailing the peace talks.”
“If the Duterte government is truly concerned in getting the public involved in the whole process why only now? They should have started it long before the start of the back-channel talks focusing on the Comprehensive Agreement on Socio-economic Reforms or CASER, which will root out the very reasons of the armed conflict between the government and the NDFP-CPP-NPA,” he said.
“The peace-loving Filipinos overseas cannot be deceived. We understand that the root cause of poverty, unemployment, low wages and the possible solutions on why, in the first place, we are forced to work abroad are embodied in the CASER. The economic backwardness that put millions of Filipinos in lamentable situations can be addressed if genuine agrarian reform and national industrialisation will be implemented in our country,” he added.
Villanueva said the public consultation only exposes the dubious agenda of the Duterte government on the peace negotiation. “We see here a scenario of over-delaying or cancellation of the peace talk and making the Filipino people, including OFWs, as scapegoats in this hullabaloo The OFWs will not take the bait of the Duterte government in advancing his tyrannical and dictatorial manoeuvring at the expense of Filipino peoples’ desire for a just and lasting peace,” he said. (Mindanao Examiner)
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