GIVING PEACE A CHANCE Peace signs and the popular Duterte fist are flashed at the close of the Second Round of the Formal Negotiations between the Philippine Government (GRP) and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in Oslo, Norway last October. Seated from left are NDFP Peace Panel Chairman Fidel Agcaoili, CPP Founding chairman and NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison, Ambassador Elisabeth Slattum of Third Party Facilitator Royal Norwegian Government, Presidential adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, and Philippine Government Peace Panel chairman Silvestre Bello III. Behind them are (from left) NDFP senior adviser Luis Jalandoni, and NDFP Peace Panel members Benito Tiamzon, Asterio Palima, Connie Ledesma and Julie de Lima; GRP Peace Panel Members Hernani Braganza, Rene Sarmiento, Angela Librado Trinidad and Antonio Arellano, and GRP consultants Angeles City Mayor Edgardo Pamintuan, and Commission on Higher Education (Ched) Commissioner Prospero De Vera.
There were tense moments when we arrived at the Scandic Holmenkollen Hotel in Oslo, Norway on Aug. 21 last year.
Although the hosts from the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG) said that August was their hottest month of the year, the 10-degree centigrade weather, coupled with the nippy, cold wind at the historic ski resort located on the hills of Oslo, still lent a chilling atmosphere to what would be the first round of the peace negotiations between the Philippine Government (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
After all, the two sides have been at war for nearly 50 years. No love lost between them. No warm, cordial greetings here, I thought.
“Joma is already in his room,” a staff member of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) told me, referring to Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the guy who, we could say, started it all.
Then one by one, they came down to the hotel lobby, the stalwarts and powers-that-are of the Communist insurgency in the Philippines, dreaded and even notorious in the eyes of the common Filipino—Sison, Jalandoni, Agcaoili, Tiamzon.
Those were names that, in my over 20 years as a journalist, I only read in newspaper reports (and Google and Wikipedia later) as the giants of the Communist movement in the Philippines.
And yet, on that cold August afternoon in Norway, they were there before me, re-awakening the revolutionary in me during my college days, and rekindling the excitement that enthralled me when I met legends like Robert Jaworski, Joker Arroyo, Fernando Poe Jr., Roger Moore, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Lucio Margallo, and President Rodrigo Roa Dutere, among many others.
You know, the kind of meeting that draws a “Wow, so that’s who they are.”
“Joma,” of course, possessed the stately presence as expected, so did former priest and NDFP chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni.
But looking around the lobby of the Holmenkollen, the gathering of the Leftist leaders at the start of the talks lent a warm feeling that it was just like any Filipino family reunion.
Spouses Benito and Wilma Tiamzon looked like they were on a honeymoon, and not in Oslo for peace negotiations, as they hardly let go of each other’s hand. The couple even cried as they shared a tight embrace with Sison at the lobby.
Then there was Fidel Agcaoili, who was then NDFP Peace Panel member, who gamely played host to his 40-or-so comrades, many of whom had just been freed from detention centers in the Philippines and had gone straight to Oslo on the strength of President Duterte’s order to release all those that the NDFP would name as its consultants.
FACE-TO-FACE The two panels meet anew at the Radison Blu Hotel in Noordwijk ann see, The Netherlands last May in a bid to rescue faltering peace talks.
There were tense moments when we arrived at the Scandic Holmenkollen Hotel in Oslo, Norway on Aug. 21 last year.
Although the hosts from the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG) said that August was their hottest month of the year, the 10-degree centigrade weather, coupled with the nippy, cold wind at the historic ski resort located on the hills of Oslo, still lent a chilling atmosphere to what would be the first round of the peace negotiations between the Philippine Government (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
After all, the two sides have been at war for nearly 50 years. No love lost between them. No warm, cordial greetings here, I thought.
“Joma is already in his room,” a staff member of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) told me, referring to Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the guy who, we could say, started it all.
Then one by one, they came down to the hotel lobby, the stalwarts and powers-that-are of the Communist insurgency in the Philippines, dreaded and even notorious in the eyes of the common Filipino—Sison, Jalandoni, Agcaoili, Tiamzon.
Those were names that, in my over 20 years as a journalist, I only read in newspaper reports (and Google and Wikipedia later) as the giants of the Communist movement in the Philippines.
And yet, on that cold August afternoon in Norway, they were there before me, re-awakening the revolutionary in me during my college days, and rekindling the excitement that enthralled me when I met legends like Robert Jaworski, Joker Arroyo, Fernando Poe Jr., Roger Moore, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Lucio Margallo, and President Rodrigo Roa Dutere, among many others.
You know, the kind of meeting that draws a “Wow, so that’s who they are.”
“Joma,” of course, possessed the stately presence as expected, so did former priest and NDFP chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni.
But looking around the lobby of the Holmenkollen, the gathering of the Leftist leaders at the start of the talks lent a warm feeling that it was just like any Filipino family reunion.
Spouses Benito and Wilma Tiamzon looked like they were on a honeymoon, and not in Oslo for peace negotiations, as they hardly let go of each other’s hand. The couple even cried as they shared a tight embrace with Sison at the lobby.
Then there was Fidel Agcaoili, who was then NDFP Peace Panel member, who gamely played host to his 40-or-so comrades, many of whom had just been freed from detention centers in the Philippines and had gone straight to Oslo on the strength of President Duterte’s order to release all those that the NDFP would name as its consultants.
FACE-TO-FACE The two panels meet anew at the Radison Blu Hotel in Noordwijk ann see, The Netherlands last May in a bid to rescue faltering peace talks.
Then there was another NDFP consultant Randy Malayao, who earnestly recorded the events on his iPad, while welcoming the other consultants coming in from 20-hour flights from the Philippines.
Obviously possessing a newfound sense of freedom, Malayao—who was accused of being involved in the killing of former Cagayan governor and then congressman Rodolfo Aguinaldo—had even been accommodating to media, introducing each of the New People’s Army (NPA) commanders, who were tapped as NDFP consultants, as they entered Holmenkollen Hotel.
After a few minutes, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, GRP Peace Panel chairman Silvestre Bello III and panel member Hernani Braganza arrived to join the NDFP in that reunion at the lobby.
This meeting caught the media group, which had come to cover the first round of talks (ABS CBN’s Danny Buenafe, GMA 7’s Raffy Tima, TV5’s Romel Lopez, PTV 4’s George Bandiola, Rappler’s Carmela Fonbuena, and Kodao Production’s Raymon Villannueva) by surprise.
For instead of stoic, antagonistic stares, there was respect, enthusiasm, and warmth all around. I could even swear there was a roar of greetings around the place.
It reminded me of that vicious Irish charge in the movie Braveheart, when a brutal confrontation with the Scots under William Wallace looked inevitable, until both sides met in the middle of the meadows of Falikirik only to break out into a wild cry while hugging each other in a show of unity.
And while Wallace and company might have been defiant of English invaders, the Filipino negotiators looked like they were one in fighting the rigors and challenges of what had been an elusive quest for peace.
Buenafe, the veteran ABS CBN bureau chief for Europe and Middle East who has been covering these talks since the ’90s, noted that there was not much of a friction as he had observed in past negotiations.
Tima noted that it was perhaps Duterte’s own enthusiasm over the resumption of the peace talks that set the light tone.
The first round went on without a hitch, setting the stage for further negotiations.
But in the succeeding rounds that included a return to Oslo in October, a trip to Rome, Italy for the third round to escape the cold weather of Norway, and two more highly volatile meetings in The Netherlands, the negotiations were rendered more complicated as the nitty-gritty of the Leftists’ demands was discussed.
And it didn’t help that the NPA renewed attacks just as the two panels were meeting in Rome. That led to the end of ceasefires unilaterally declared by both sides six months earlier, and sparked a series of violent confrontations between the forces of the government and the Communists that all but doomed the talks.
Since then, there have been efforts to rescue the talks, the latest of which was on July 20 when a GRP team was already at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) departure area, their bags at the check-in counter and ready to depart for The Netherlands for back channel talks with the NDFP, until a call came from Malacañang ordering them to abandon the talks.
The order was spawned by an NPA attack on a convoy of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) in Arakan, North Cotabato a day before, an assault that might have all but snuffed out any remaining patience that Duterte might have had for the Communists.
A few weeks later, Braganza celebrated his birthday at a Quezon City joint. Agcaoili was there. At that time, word was already out that the NDFP consultants, who were given safe passage by the government because of the talks, could be re-arrested at any time, and no one could blame him for feeling so uneasy.
After all, while there was no pending charge against him, Agcaoili should have been the last NDFP personality to be at the party, considering that—well, he’s with the Communists—and that among Braganza’s well-wishers were top military and police brass.
But there was Quezon City mayor Herbert Bautista, a consultant of the government panel on the urban poor, who came up to Agcaoili and assured him that for as long as he was in his city, he would not be arrested.
His apprehensions aside, Agcaoili joined our table. The media group covering the talks has since referred to itself as the “Humps and Bumps Media Group” in reference to the cliché that Dureza used in his speeches during the talks.
As the party heated up, Agcaoili didn’t need much prodding when the media guys asked him to join Braganza, former ’70s folk singer and now-GRP panel consultant Pancho Lara, and singer Cookie Chua on stage.
Lara and Chua sang John Lennon’s “Imagine” before Braganza and Agcaoili joined in, their arms already slung over each other’s shoulders like they were comrades rather than opponents who threw invectives at each other across the negotiation table in those word wars in Europe.
Mid-way in the song, Braganza and Agcaoili looked into each other’s eyes as they sang out loud, “Imagine all the people, living life in peace.”
The “Yoohoo” that followed was deafening.
It was then that our so-called Humps and Bumps Media Group realized that the story we had been following for a year might not yet be over.
BREAK IN TALKS Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza (fifth from right) and Philippine Panel Chairman Silvestre Bello (eighth from right) join Philippine journalists covering the peace talks at the Radison Blu Hotel in Noordwijk ann see, The Netherlands. Top photo shows (from right) NDFP Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison, Norway Ambassador to the Philippines Erik Forner, NDFP Peace Panel Chairman Fidel Agcaoili, GRP Peace Panel Chairman Silvestre Bello III, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay, and Royal Norwegian Government Third Party Facilitator Ambassador Elisabeth Slattum at the close of the Third Round of the Formal Talks in Rome, Italy last January.
There is still hope.
The other journalists,who have since joined us after the first round were Kaye Imson from TV5, PTV 4’s Ria Fernandez and SweedenVelado, Inquirer’s Karlos Manlupig, and Davao journalists Zea Correa Capistrano and Grace Udin.
Text and Images by Rocky Nazareno
There were tense moments when we arrived at the Scandic Holmenkollen Hotel in Oslo, Norway on Aug. 21 last year.
Although the hosts from the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG) said that August was their hottest month of the year, the 10-degree centigrade weather, coupled with the nippy, cold wind at the historic ski resort located on the hills of Oslo, still lent a chilling atmosphere to what would be the first round of the peace negotiations between the Philippine Government (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
After all, the two sides have been at war for nearly 50 years. No love lost between them. No warm, cordial greetings here, I thought.
“Joma is already in his room,” a staff member of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) told me, referring to Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the guy who, we could say, started it all.
Then one by one, they came down to the hotel lobby, the stalwarts and powers-that-are of the Communist insurgency in the Philippines, dreaded and even notorious in the eyes of the common Filipino—Sison, Jalandoni, Agcaoili, Tiamzon.
Those were names that, in my over 20 years as a journalist, I only read in newspaper reports (and Google and Wikipedia later) as the giants of the Communist movement in the Philippines.
And yet, on that cold August afternoon in Norway, they were there before me, re-awakening the revolutionary in me during my college days, and rekindling the excitement that enthralled me when I met legends like Robert Jaworski, Joker Arroyo, Fernando Poe Jr., Roger Moore, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Lucio Margallo, and President Rodrigo Roa Dutere, among many others.
You know, the kind of meeting that draws a “Wow, so that’s who they are.”
“Joma,” of course, possessed the stately presence as expected, so did former priest and NDFP chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni.
But looking around the lobby of the Holmenkollen, the gathering of the Leftist leaders at the start of the talks lent a warm feeling that it was just like any Filipino family reunion.
Spouses Benito and Wilma Tiamzon looked like they were on a honeymoon, and not in Oslo for peace negotiations, as they hardly let go of each other’s hand. The couple even cried as they shared a tight embrace with Sison at the lobby.
Then there was Fidel Agcaoili, who was then NDFP Peace Panel member, who gamely played host to his 40-or-so comrades, many of whom had just been freed from detention centers in the Philippines and had gone straight to Oslo on the strength of President Duterte’s order to release all those that the NDFP would name as its consultants.
Then there was another NDFP consultant Randy Malayao, who earnestly recorded the events on his iPad, while welcoming the other consultants coming in from 20-hour flights from the Philippines.
Obviously possessing a newfound sense of freedom, Malayao—who was accused of being involved in the killing of former Cagayan governor and then congressman Rodolfo Aguinaldo—had even been accommodating to media, introducing each of the New People’s Army (NPA) commanders, who were tapped as NDFP consultants, as they entered Holmenkollen Hotel.
After a few minutes, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, GRP Peace Panel chairman Silvestre Bello III and panel member Hernani Braganza arrived to join the NDFP in that reunion at the lobby.
This meeting caught the media group, which had come to cover the first round of talks (ABS CBN’s Danny Buenafe, GMA 7’s Raffy Tima, TV5’s Romel Lopez, PTV 4’s George Bandiola, Rappler’s Carmela Fonbuena, and Kodao Production’s Raymon Villannueva) by surprise.
For instead of stoic, antagonistic stares, there was respect, enthusiasm, and warmth all around. I could even swear there was a roar of greetings around the place.
It reminded me of that vicious Irish charge in the movie Braveheart, when a brutal confrontation with the Scots under William Wallace looked inevitable, until both sides met in the middle of the meadows of Falikirik only to break out into a wild cry while hugging each other in a show of unity.
And while Wallace and company might have been defiant of English invaders, the Filipino negotiators looked like they were one in fighting the rigors and challenges of what had been an elusive quest for peace.
Buenafe, the veteran ABS CBN bureau chief for Europe and Middle East who has been covering these talks since the ’90s, noted that there was not much of a friction as he had observed in past negotiations.
Tima noted that it was perhaps Duterte’s own enthusiasm over the resumption of the peace talks that set the light tone.
The first round went on without a hitch, setting the stage for further negotiations.
But in the succeeding rounds that included a return to Oslo in October, a trip to Rome, Italy for the third round to escape the cold weather of Norway, and two more highly volatile meetings in The Netherlands, the negotiations were rendered more complicated as the nitty-gritty of the Leftists’ demands was discussed.
And it didn’t help that the NPA renewed attacks just as the two panels were meeting in Rome. That led to the end of ceasefires unilaterally declared by both sides six months earlier, and sparked a series of violent confrontations between the forces of the government and the Communists that all but doomed the talks.
Since then, there have been efforts to rescue the talks, the latest of which was on July 20 when a GRP team was already at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) departure area, their bags at the check-in counter and ready to depart for The Netherlands for back channel talks with the NDFP, until a call came from Malacañang ordering them to abandon the talks.
The order was spawned by an NPA attack on a convoy of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) in Arakan, North Cotabato a day before, an assault that might have all but snuffed out any remaining patience that Duterte might have had for the Communists.
A few weeks later, Braganza celebrated his birthday at a Quezon City joint. Agcaoili was there. At that time, word was already out that the NDFP consultants, who were given safe passage by the government because of the talks, could be re-arrested at any time, and no one could blame him for feeling so uneasy.
After all, while there was no pending charge against him, Agcaoili should have been the last NDFP personality to be at the party, considering that—well, he’s with the Communists—and that among Braganza’s well-wishers were top military and police brass.
But there was Quezon City mayor Herbert Bautista, a consultant of the government panel on the urban poor, who came up to Agcaoili and assured him that for as long as he was in his city, he would not be arrested.
His apprehensions aside, Agcaoili joined our table. The media group covering the talks has since referred to itself as the “Humps and Bumps Media Group” in reference to the cliché that Dureza used in his speeches during the talks.
As the party heated up, Agcaoili didn’t need much prodding when the media guys asked him to join Braganza, former ’70s folk singer and now-GRP panel consultant Pancho Lara, and singer Cookie Chua on stage.
Lara and Chua sang John Lennon’s “Imagine” before Braganza and Agcaoili joined in, their arms already slung over each other’s shoulders like they were comrades rather than opponents who threw invectives at each other across the negotiation table in those word wars in Europe.
Mid-way in the song, Braganza and Agcaoili looked into each other’s eyes as they sang out loud, “Imagine all the people, living life in peace.”
The “Yoohoo” that followed was deafening.
It was then that our so-called Humps and Bumps Media Group realized that the story we had been following for a year might not yet be over.
There is still hope.
The other journalists,who have since joined us after the first round were Kaye Imson from TV5, PTV 4’s Ria Fernandez and SweedenVelado, Inquirer’s Karlos Manlupig, and Davao journalists Zea Correa Capistrano and Grace Udin.
Obviously possessing a newfound sense of freedom, Malayao—who was accused of being involved in the killing of former Cagayan governor and then congressman Rodolfo Aguinaldo—had even been accommodating to media, introducing each of the New People’s Army (NPA) commanders, who were tapped as NDFP consultants, as they entered Holmenkollen Hotel.
After a few minutes, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, GRP Peace Panel chairman Silvestre Bello III and panel member Hernani Braganza arrived to join the NDFP in that reunion at the lobby.
This meeting caught the media group, which had come to cover the first round of talks (ABS CBN’s Danny Buenafe, GMA 7’s Raffy Tima, TV5’s Romel Lopez, PTV 4’s George Bandiola, Rappler’s Carmela Fonbuena, and Kodao Production’s Raymon Villannueva) by surprise.
For instead of stoic, antagonistic stares, there was respect, enthusiasm, and warmth all around. I could even swear there was a roar of greetings around the place.
It reminded me of that vicious Irish charge in the movie Braveheart, when a brutal confrontation with the Scots under William Wallace looked inevitable, until both sides met in the middle of the meadows of Falikirik only to break out into a wild cry while hugging each other in a show of unity.
And while Wallace and company might have been defiant of English invaders, the Filipino negotiators looked like they were one in fighting the rigors and challenges of what had been an elusive quest for peace.
Buenafe, the veteran ABS CBN bureau chief for Europe and Middle East who has been covering these talks since the ’90s, noted that there was not much of a friction as he had observed in past negotiations.
Tima noted that it was perhaps Duterte’s own enthusiasm over the resumption of the peace talks that set the light tone.
The first round went on without a hitch, setting the stage for further negotiations.
But in the succeeding rounds that included a return to Oslo in October, a trip to Rome, Italy for the third round to escape the cold weather of Norway, and two more highly volatile meetings in The Netherlands, the negotiations were rendered more complicated as the nitty-gritty of the Leftists’ demands was discussed.
And it didn’t help that the NPA renewed attacks just as the two panels were meeting in Rome. That led to the end of ceasefires unilaterally declared by both sides six months earlier, and sparked a series of violent confrontations between the forces of the government and the Communists that all but doomed the talks.
Since then, there have been efforts to rescue the talks, the latest of which was on July 20 when a GRP team was already at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) departure area, their bags at the check-in counter and ready to depart for The Netherlands for back channel talks with the NDFP, until a call came from Malacañang ordering them to abandon the talks.
The order was spawned by an NPA attack on a convoy of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) in Arakan, North Cotabato a day before, an assault that might have all but snuffed out any remaining patience that Duterte might have had for the Communists.
A few weeks later, Braganza celebrated his birthday at a Quezon City joint. Agcaoili was there. At that time, word was already out that the NDFP consultants, who were given safe passage by the government because of the talks, could be re-arrested at any time, and no one could blame him for feeling so uneasy.
After all, while there was no pending charge against him, Agcaoili should have been the last NDFP personality to be at the party, considering that—well, he’s with the Communists—and that among Braganza’s well-wishers were top military and police brass.
But there was Quezon City mayor Herbert Bautista, a consultant of the government panel on the urban poor, who came up to Agcaoili and assured him that for as long as he was in his city, he would not be arrested.
His apprehensions aside, Agcaoili joined our table. The media group covering the talks has since referred to itself as the “Humps and Bumps Media Group” in reference to the cliché that Dureza used in his speeches during the talks.
As the party heated up, Agcaoili didn’t need much prodding when the media guys asked him to join Braganza, former ’70s folk singer and now-GRP panel consultant Pancho Lara, and singer Cookie Chua on stage.
Lara and Chua sang John Lennon’s “Imagine” before Braganza and Agcaoili joined in, their arms already slung over each other’s shoulders like they were comrades rather than opponents who threw invectives at each other across the negotiation table in those word wars in Europe.
Mid-way in the song, Braganza and Agcaoili looked into each other’s eyes as they sang out loud, “Imagine all the people, living life in peace.”
The “Yoohoo” that followed was deafening.
It was then that our so-called Humps and Bumps Media Group realized that the story we had been following for a year might not yet be over.
BREAK IN TALKS Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza (fifth from right) and Philippine Panel Chairman Silvestre Bello (eighth from right) join Philippine journalists covering the peace talks at the Radison Blu Hotel in Noordwijk ann see, The Netherlands. Top photo shows (from right) NDFP Chief Political Consultant Jose Maria Sison, Norway Ambassador to the Philippines Erik Forner, NDFP Peace Panel Chairman Fidel Agcaoili, GRP Peace Panel Chairman Silvestre Bello III, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay, and Royal Norwegian Government Third Party Facilitator Ambassador Elisabeth Slattum at the close of the Third Round of the Formal Talks in Rome, Italy last January.
There is still hope.
The other journalists,who have since joined us after the first round were Kaye Imson from TV5, PTV 4’s Ria Fernandez and SweedenVelado, Inquirer’s Karlos Manlupig, and Davao journalists Zea Correa Capistrano and Grace Udin.
Text and Images by Rocky Nazareno
There were tense moments when we arrived at the Scandic Holmenkollen Hotel in Oslo, Norway on Aug. 21 last year.
Although the hosts from the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG) said that August was their hottest month of the year, the 10-degree centigrade weather, coupled with the nippy, cold wind at the historic ski resort located on the hills of Oslo, still lent a chilling atmosphere to what would be the first round of the peace negotiations between the Philippine Government (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).
After all, the two sides have been at war for nearly 50 years. No love lost between them. No warm, cordial greetings here, I thought.
“Joma is already in his room,” a staff member of the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) told me, referring to Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the guy who, we could say, started it all.
Then one by one, they came down to the hotel lobby, the stalwarts and powers-that-are of the Communist insurgency in the Philippines, dreaded and even notorious in the eyes of the common Filipino—Sison, Jalandoni, Agcaoili, Tiamzon.
Those were names that, in my over 20 years as a journalist, I only read in newspaper reports (and Google and Wikipedia later) as the giants of the Communist movement in the Philippines.
And yet, on that cold August afternoon in Norway, they were there before me, re-awakening the revolutionary in me during my college days, and rekindling the excitement that enthralled me when I met legends like Robert Jaworski, Joker Arroyo, Fernando Poe Jr., Roger Moore, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela, Lucio Margallo, and President Rodrigo Roa Dutere, among many others.
You know, the kind of meeting that draws a “Wow, so that’s who they are.”
“Joma,” of course, possessed the stately presence as expected, so did former priest and NDFP chief negotiator Luis Jalandoni.
But looking around the lobby of the Holmenkollen, the gathering of the Leftist leaders at the start of the talks lent a warm feeling that it was just like any Filipino family reunion.
Spouses Benito and Wilma Tiamzon looked like they were on a honeymoon, and not in Oslo for peace negotiations, as they hardly let go of each other’s hand. The couple even cried as they shared a tight embrace with Sison at the lobby.
Then there was Fidel Agcaoili, who was then NDFP Peace Panel member, who gamely played host to his 40-or-so comrades, many of whom had just been freed from detention centers in the Philippines and had gone straight to Oslo on the strength of President Duterte’s order to release all those that the NDFP would name as its consultants.
Then there was another NDFP consultant Randy Malayao, who earnestly recorded the events on his iPad, while welcoming the other consultants coming in from 20-hour flights from the Philippines.
Obviously possessing a newfound sense of freedom, Malayao—who was accused of being involved in the killing of former Cagayan governor and then congressman Rodolfo Aguinaldo—had even been accommodating to media, introducing each of the New People’s Army (NPA) commanders, who were tapped as NDFP consultants, as they entered Holmenkollen Hotel.
After a few minutes, Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, GRP Peace Panel chairman Silvestre Bello III and panel member Hernani Braganza arrived to join the NDFP in that reunion at the lobby.
This meeting caught the media group, which had come to cover the first round of talks (ABS CBN’s Danny Buenafe, GMA 7’s Raffy Tima, TV5’s Romel Lopez, PTV 4’s George Bandiola, Rappler’s Carmela Fonbuena, and Kodao Production’s Raymon Villannueva) by surprise.
For instead of stoic, antagonistic stares, there was respect, enthusiasm, and warmth all around. I could even swear there was a roar of greetings around the place.
It reminded me of that vicious Irish charge in the movie Braveheart, when a brutal confrontation with the Scots under William Wallace looked inevitable, until both sides met in the middle of the meadows of Falikirik only to break out into a wild cry while hugging each other in a show of unity.
And while Wallace and company might have been defiant of English invaders, the Filipino negotiators looked like they were one in fighting the rigors and challenges of what had been an elusive quest for peace.
Buenafe, the veteran ABS CBN bureau chief for Europe and Middle East who has been covering these talks since the ’90s, noted that there was not much of a friction as he had observed in past negotiations.
Tima noted that it was perhaps Duterte’s own enthusiasm over the resumption of the peace talks that set the light tone.
The first round went on without a hitch, setting the stage for further negotiations.
But in the succeeding rounds that included a return to Oslo in October, a trip to Rome, Italy for the third round to escape the cold weather of Norway, and two more highly volatile meetings in The Netherlands, the negotiations were rendered more complicated as the nitty-gritty of the Leftists’ demands was discussed.
And it didn’t help that the NPA renewed attacks just as the two panels were meeting in Rome. That led to the end of ceasefires unilaterally declared by both sides six months earlier, and sparked a series of violent confrontations between the forces of the government and the Communists that all but doomed the talks.
Since then, there have been efforts to rescue the talks, the latest of which was on July 20 when a GRP team was already at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) departure area, their bags at the check-in counter and ready to depart for The Netherlands for back channel talks with the NDFP, until a call came from Malacañang ordering them to abandon the talks.
The order was spawned by an NPA attack on a convoy of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) in Arakan, North Cotabato a day before, an assault that might have all but snuffed out any remaining patience that Duterte might have had for the Communists.
A few weeks later, Braganza celebrated his birthday at a Quezon City joint. Agcaoili was there. At that time, word was already out that the NDFP consultants, who were given safe passage by the government because of the talks, could be re-arrested at any time, and no one could blame him for feeling so uneasy.
After all, while there was no pending charge against him, Agcaoili should have been the last NDFP personality to be at the party, considering that—well, he’s with the Communists—and that among Braganza’s well-wishers were top military and police brass.
But there was Quezon City mayor Herbert Bautista, a consultant of the government panel on the urban poor, who came up to Agcaoili and assured him that for as long as he was in his city, he would not be arrested.
His apprehensions aside, Agcaoili joined our table. The media group covering the talks has since referred to itself as the “Humps and Bumps Media Group” in reference to the cliché that Dureza used in his speeches during the talks.
As the party heated up, Agcaoili didn’t need much prodding when the media guys asked him to join Braganza, former ’70s folk singer and now-GRP panel consultant Pancho Lara, and singer Cookie Chua on stage.
Lara and Chua sang John Lennon’s “Imagine” before Braganza and Agcaoili joined in, their arms already slung over each other’s shoulders like they were comrades rather than opponents who threw invectives at each other across the negotiation table in those word wars in Europe.
Mid-way in the song, Braganza and Agcaoili looked into each other’s eyes as they sang out loud, “Imagine all the people, living life in peace.”
The “Yoohoo” that followed was deafening.
It was then that our so-called Humps and Bumps Media Group realized that the story we had been following for a year might not yet be over.
There is still hope.
The other journalists,who have since joined us after the first round were Kaye Imson from TV5, PTV 4’s Ria Fernandez and SweedenVelado, Inquirer’s Karlos Manlupig, and Davao journalists Zea Correa Capistrano and Grace Udin.
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