Sara converts DC PEACE into advisory council
FOLLOWING the order of President Rodrigo Duterte declaring the communist group as terrorist, Mayor Sara Duterte said she is no longer pursuing the localized peace talks that she initiated.
The mayor will also be converting into an advisory council the Davao City Peace Council (DC PEACE), the body tasked to supposedly conduct peace talks with the New People’s Army (NPA).
The presidential daughter said she has mixed feelings about the situation.
“As city mayor, I am saddened because there were efforts coming from the city government to sit down and talk peace with the NPA,” Sara said.
The mayor once tagged the NPA as terrorist following the death of fish vendor Larry Buenafe who was hit by a detonated improvised explosive device set up by the rebel during their attack at Lapanday on April 29.
But nonetheless, the mayor still pursued her planned local peace talks with the communist group.
Earlier, members of DC PEACE were supposed to go to the hinterlands of the city this week to make contact with NPA leaders. It has been scrapped.
The DC PEACE team convened yesterday morning in response to the declaration of President Duterte tagging the communist movement as terrorists in a proclamation released earlier this week.
DC PEACE member Irene Santiago, who was the government panel chair of the Bangsamoro Transition Commission, said the locally initiated move is no longer pursuing peace talks “but to address the root causes of rebellion.”
The mayor will soon be issuing an executive order to convert DC PEACE into an advisory council that would inform the local government of the grievances of those in the hinterlands in hopes of local government addressing the situation on its own level.
The advisory council, Santiago said, is not at all designed to be a service delivery organization of the government.
She said the council will implement a peace table setup.
The peace table is a venue where a dialog takes place between government and the marginalized sectors – women, indigenous peoples, farmers, workers, etc. – and where they can freely express what they expect government to do to create an environment conducive to peace and what they can also contribute to make peace sustainable.
Santiago said the team will only be having minimal security to avoid the impression that it is a military operation masking as a government caravan.
The committee is scheduled to meet today to identify their next move through a strategic planning.
The group is still hoping to go to the hinterlands of the city on Dec. 20 to initially meet with a community in the second district.
Archbishop Romulo Valles, another member of DC Peace, said the church is looking forward to listening to the grievances of the communities.
“The church doesn’t have all the practical solutions,” Valles said. “But we are looking forward to pursue peace in creative ways.”
“There are valid ways of pursuing peace,” Valles said.
The Mayor said she would give the advisory council free rein to decide the next move.
The Philippine National Police and the Armed Forces of the Philippines are not part of the committee, Mayor Duterte said, allaying fears rebels would see the visit to the hinterlands as a police or military operation.
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