Reds ready to continue armed struggle — Joma

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which represents the local communist movement whose followers have been hankering for peace since the 1986 peace talks flopped, yesterday cast doubt on the ability of the Arroyo leadership to pursue peace talks with them.

“Until now, the NDFP does not see the Arroyo regime is seriously interested in peace negotiations as a way addressing the roots of the civil war through agreements on basic social, economic and political reforms as a basis of a just and lasting peace,” Jose Ma. Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968 and NDFP’s peace talks consultant of NDFP, said in a statement released a few days before the resumption of peace talks between the NDFP and the Philippine government scheduled on Sept. 5 in Oslo, Norway.

Sison said that notwithstanding the political posturings of the Philippine government, which has continued to refuse the release from its custody of several communist leaders that the NDFP claimed were its peace consultants, the communist revolutionary forces were ready to continue their war against the government.

“Accordingly, the CPP, NPA and NDFP are united and ready to wage a tit-for-tat struggle against any scheme or maneuver of the Arroyo regime. Indeed, the Filipino people have been pressing on the NPA to intensify tactical offensives on a nationwide scale,” Sison said.

The Arroyo government has adopted an ambivalent attitude toward the 40-year communist rebellion. On one hand, President Arroyo has ordered the Armed Forces of the Philippines to either end the communist insurgency or render it to an insignificant level before her term ends in 2010. The military has expressed optimism it can meet the deadline in pulverizing the communist rebels that pundits have described as “a spent force.”

In his statement, Sison also expressed optimism that even without the peace talks largely bruited about by the Arroyo administration, a new leadership would emerge and seek peace with the communist forces.

“The revolutionary forces are also looking at the possibility within the next 10 years that patriotic and progressive forces arise within the ruling system and make serious negotiations with the NDFP for a great historic concord of national unity and peace to uphold, defend and advance national independence, democracy as empowerment of the people, economic development through national industrialization and land reform and a patriotic, scientific and democratic,” Sison said.

In the same breath, Sison, who is now in self-exile in Utrecht in the Netherlands, also found in Mrs. Arroyo’s lavish lifestyle abroad an argument to fend off criticisms against his savoring the comfort of Western lifestyle in Europe as his comrades in the Philippines wallowed in poverty pursuing the communist cause.

“As regards my lifestyle, it cannot go far beyond borrowed money for bare subsistence. It is incomparable to the sybaritic life of corrupt high bureaucrats and military top brass in the Philippines and to the likes of Gloria and Mike Arroyo who gorge on million peso banquets. I go only to modest potlucks and barbecue gatherings,” he said as he referred to the reported lavish dinners that Mrs. Arroyo and her group had in the US during her recent working visit in Washington. –Mario J. Mallari, Daily Tribune