Estrada says deal calls for guerrillas to give up arms

DEPOSED President Joseph Estrada on Monday cautioned the government against using P31 million to benefit the members of the Alex Boncayao Brigade, a communist splinter group with which he signed a peace agreement in 2000, saying the rebels must surrender their firearms first.

“That was one of the conditions,” Estrada told the Manila Standard.

“The ABB, the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa Pilipinas and Revolutionary Proletarian Army, must disband and surrender their firearms before the funding for livelihood projects and housing could be given to them.

“The ABB should also deliver their end of the bargain. In fairness to them, shortly after the accord was signed and even without me in power already, some of them surrendered their firearms and stopped assassinating high-profile police, military [officials] and businessmen who they perceived as having blood debts to the people.”

Presidential Peace Adviser Teresita Deles, who confirmed that P31 million had been set aside for the rebels, said the agreement called for the group to surrender their weapons, but that they would be allowed to keep their firearms while the negotiations continued.

“If they want to keep an organization [after the peace agreement is final], it will be as an unarmed organization registered under Philippine laws,” Deles said.

She said the rebels would get no special treatment when it came to gun ownership.

“We are doing the final disposition of forces and arms,” Deles said.

“The Armed Forces and the National Police are on top of this. We depend on them to set the final provisions of the last component of the agreement—the closure process—based on security requirements on the ground.”

The P31 million was allocated for community livelihood projects and housing for the members of the group in three peace and development communities, Deles said.

Asked about a possible backlash from the communists, Estrada said: “That’s their problem, but the ABB can protect themselves.”

Estrada said the agreement provided that the military would treat the rebels as “civilians” whom the state was bound to protect.

But the leftist allies of President Benigno Aquino III accused Deles of trying to “co-opt” the RPMP-RPA-ABB and use them as a private army in the counter-insurgency campaign against the communists.

“The P31 million for the ABB was a concession to the government’s bidding against the New People’s Army and its sympathizers and carry out divide-and-rule tactics,” Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casiño said.

He said the ABB members were the ones harassing ordinary people and activists who were sympathetic to the NPA’s calls for genuine reforms in the Aquino administration.

Kabataan Rep. Raymond Palatino and ACT Teachers Rep. Antonio Tinio, who revealed the P31 million allocation for the ABB, said the P329-million fund for the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan or Pamana was being used by Deles as “one big counter-insurgency fund in the guise of social welfare.”

As of September 2011, some P189 million had been earmarked for release to the rebel groups, including the P31 million for the ABB and P35 million for the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army.

They said the government should have a “comprehensive peace policy,” not just concessions and handouts to small pockets of rebels.

The selective political settlement, they said, encouraged “adventurism.”

But Muntinlupa City Rep. Rodolfo Biazon, chairman of the House committee on national defense, said the Aquino administration had no choice but to honor the peace agreement forged by the Estrada and Arroyo administrations.

He dismissed talk of demoralization among the military and police as a result of the rehabilitation of their former enemies.

“They are grieving the death of their fellow soldiers but they are not demoralized,” said Biazon, a former Armed Forces chief.

“Demoralization sets in if the soldiers show they can no longer carry out their job effectively.” –Christine F. Herrera, Manila Standard Today