OPAPP pushing peace process with Reds quietly, unofficially —Dureza

From GMA News (Jan 12): OPAPP pushing peace process with Reds quietly, unofficially —Dureza

The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process has been conducting “quiet, unofficial” ways of advancing the peace process with communist rebels, peace adviser Secretary Jesus Dureza said Friday.

But he clarified that no backchannel negotiations have taken place since peace talks were terminated in November last year.

“The work of OPAPP is to look for ways and means to move the peace process forward. So we’re doing that but in a very unofficial and quiet way, because we have to take the directive coming from no less than the President,” said Dureza in an interview on Bloomberg TV Philippines on Thursday.

However, Dureza did not elaborate on what the OPAPP is quietly doing for the peace process.
Asked if the government and the left have carried out backchannel talks, Dureza said: “Nothing at all, in deference to the President’s directive."

He also reiterated that while the OPAPP has to comply with President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to cancel peace talks with the left, the doors to peace “have not been totally shut.”

Duterte has excluded the National Democratic Front, the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines, from his terrorist tag, and some observers see hope for peace in the "omission."

But Dureza said, “...If that is the reading of the public, then we can affirm that the doors have not been totally shut and we will still continue working on that but we have to take the clear directive of the president right now."

He said peace negotiations are not the only path to peace, citing a “culture of peace,” “social healing of relationships” marred by conflict, and “taking care of victims of conflict.”

Duterte called off peace negotiations with communist rebels—for the third time—in November after what Dureza called “tragic and violent incidents” carried out by the left’s armed group despite ongoing talks.

Within days, the President also declared the CPP-NPA as a terrorist organization, a move a left-leaning lawmaker considers a “death warrant” for all Duterte dissenters, communist or not.

http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/639468/opapp-pushing-peace-process-with-reds-quietly-unofficially-dureza/story/