A New People's Army squad guarding the approaches to a grassroots peace forum hosted by the rebels in the mountains of Central Negros. (photo by Nonoy Espina, InterAksyon.com)
CENTRAL NEGROS -- Communist rebels on Negros blasted President Rodrigo Duterte for his bloody war on drugs and rated him a “5” on a scale of 1 to 10.
At the same time, they challenged people to stand up “and act or more people will become victims of (the) extrajudicial killings” that have marked the war on drugs, accounting for most of the more than 6,000 deaths since Duterte’s term began in July.
They also rejected government plans to restore the death sentence, even if their system of revolutionary justice does include capital punishment, saying the current system of governance would ensure that “it will be used mostly on the poor, who cannot afford to mount a decent defense.”
Speaking to journalists at a grassroots peace forum in a village deep in the Central Negros mountains, former priest Frank Fernandez, spokesman of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines on the island, said he was giving Duterte positive points for his professed pursuit of an independent foreign policy and his stance against the United States.
“It is not enough to be anti-US,” Fernandez said, stressing that the goal should be “anti-imperialist,” apparently referring to Duterte’s shift towards China and Russia, both US rivals that Philippine rebels say harbor imperialist ambitions.
However, he asked: “Is Duterte consistent? How far will he go?”
Fernandez also wondered if the military, which he said remains “controlled by the US,” would allow Duterte to actually pursue an independent policy removed from the former colonizer.
More important, Fernandez said, Duterte “has to prove himself,” noting that in his first six months as president, “wala sang benepisyo sa masa (there have been no benefits for the masses).”
An NPA fighter mingles with the audience at a grassroots peace conference hosted by the rebels in a mountain village in Central Negros. (photo by Nonoy Espina, InterAksyon.com)
Zeroing in on the bloody anti-drug campaign, Fernandez said Duterte’s “approach can never solve the problem.”
“Drugs are only a symptom of what ails society. The need is to go to the root of the problem, to look at society as a whole” he stressed. “Drugs are no different from gambling, prostitution, guns for hire, graft and corruption -- all symptoms of society’s problems.”
New People’s Army commander Juanito Magbanua acknowledged that “at first we appreciated Duterte’s efforts to solve the drug problems” but quickly saw something was wrong because “most of those who have died are the poor.”
“Even the street pushers belong to the suffering poor,” he said. “We are not saying they (pushers) are right but most of them were pushed to the trade by poverty.”
Magbanua said Duterte should recognize that “drugs reach the streets from above, from the drug lords and large distributors. Why not go after them first instead of killing only the poor, who are as much victims of the drug trade?”
He also pointed out that “way before Duterte became president, the revolutionary movement already had an anti-drug program in the guerrilla zones” and that, while they shared the goal of eradicating the narcotics trade in the country, “we cannot agree to the extrajudicial executions whose targets are largely the masses.”
Aside from this, the rebel leaders said the war on drugs threatened to derail efforts to negotiate an end to the almost half-century old armed struggle as they accused the military of using the anti-narcotics campaign as a cover for counterinsurgency operations, saying 16 activists, including an indigenous people’s leader, have been targeted in extrajudicial killings across the country “using the war on drugs as a justification.”
“This is why we cannot agree right away to a bilateral ceasefire with government because we have to secure the people in the areas where we operate against abuses like this,” Fernandez stressed.
While the government and rebels separately declared unilateral ceasefires to mark the resumption of formal peace talks in June, efforts to forge a bilateral agreement have been stymied by the continued detention of more than 400 political prisoners and allegations of continued military operations and human rights abuses.
As for the death penalty, Fernandez said its existence in the revolutionary justice system is meant “to protect the people” and explained that every sentence the rebels imposed “goes through a proper investigation as well as consultation with the masses, especially in areas where revolutionary organs of government operate.”
In contrast, he said, the justice system of the government “is meant to protect those in power, the ruling classes,” citing the “rehabilitation of murders and plunderers” such as former Presidents Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Joseph Estrada and Ferdinand Marcos.
http://interaksyon.com/article/135554/negros-rebels-slam-war-on-drugs-rate-duterte-a-5-on-scale-of-10
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