(Eagle News)–Bagong Alyansang Makabayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. on Friday, March 22, slammed President Rodrigo Duterte for terminating the peace talks “permanently,” saying the chief executive “does not understand there is broad support” for such a process.
“The President fails to grasp that…addressing the roots of the armed conflict, and not a militarist approach, is the most effective way to a just peace,” he said.
According to Reyes, localized peace talks “appear doomed from the onset as it is more of a monologue than a dialogue, since one side has said it will not participate.”
He said the localized talks “also do not present any clear framework for socioeconomic and sociopolitical reforms which form the substance of the peace talks.”
“The dissolution of the Duterte government’s peace panel with the NDFP, the arrest of an NDFP peace consultant, amid the President’s repeated termination of the peace talks, all bode ill for the cause of just peace in the Philippines. These are all major setbacks that go against the people’s aspirations for a just resolution of the armed conflict,” Reyes said.
He said “Duterte continues to tread the path of escalating the armed conflict, which has resulted in widespread human rights violations, militarization of communities, attacks on progressive organizations and other abuses.”
In line with this, Reyes called on “peace advocates and human rights defenders to remain steadfast and resist the escalating attacks on the people, frustrate the plans for a dictatorship, and pursue the resumption of formal talks.”
“The Duterte regime overestimates itself, while grossly underestimating the severity of the crisis and the capacity of the people to overcome.Impunity is not forever, and the intensifying abuses will be this regime’s own undoing,” he said.
