NDF/NDF-SMR: On Sara Duterte’s anti-peace rhetoric

NDF-SMR propaganda statement posted to the National Democratic Front Philippines (NDFP or NDF) Website (Dec 25, 2019): On Sara Duterte’s anti-peace rhetoric

National Democratic Front of the Philippines
Southern Mindanao Region

25 December 2019

Revolutionary forces in Southern Mindanao slam the recent pronouncement of GRP Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio to exclude Davao City from the GRP’s ceasefire declaration and the peace negotiations with the NDFP. In parroting the militarist line of peace spoilers and extreme rightists of the ruling class of declaring the revolutionary movement as terrorists unfit to be faced in the negotiation table, she displays a bent to rule with impunity, to subjugate the people’s will under the auspices of the fascist AFP and their imperialist masters by negating peace negotiations.

GRP Mayor Sara wrongly blames the alleged failure of the GRP-NDFP talks to the “countless criminal acts and treachery” of the revolutionary forces, specifically the NPA. Yet, it had been the AFP’s fascist forays into hinterland areas that violated GRP’s ceasefire declarations which forced NPA units to engage in self-defense.

She is more concerned with cheerleading the militarization of Davao City by supporting the brutal operations and psywar tactics of the 16th Infantry Battalion, the 89th IB and the 3rd IB of the Philippine Army, the AFP’s intelligence operations, Task Force Davao and police forces. This cabal is responsible for the countless extra-judicial killings, drug-related executions, disappearances and forced evacuations of farmers and Lumad under martial law. Her diatribe against talking with revolutionary forces shows her wayward intolerance to human rights and justice. She’s in fact happier to gag activists, kowtow to Chinese imperialist economic aggression, close Lumad schools and pamper the AFP.

In her bid to remove Davao City from the GRP’s framework of peace talks and ceasefire, GRP Mayor Sara attempts to make her local government immune to scrutiny from the mounting backlash among displaced drivers, aggrieved urban poor whose residences have been demolished and dislocated farmers and workers as a result of her accommodation of big ticket infrastructure, road and other projects funded by imperialist blood money.

GRP Mayor Sara harps on about the supposed “gains” of Peace 911, Davao City’s so-called local initiative, that engages the masses under duress in “peace dialogues” but at the behest and under the guns of hundreds of fascist AFP soldiers. Under the gloss of spurious programs such as the “Peace Economy,” these “gains” merely deodorize the horrid stories of harassments, psywar, forced and fake surrenders of civilians as NPA members and forced recruitment to CAFGU, Alamara and Bagani paramilitary forces. She seems to also be blissfully unaware of the fact that the 3 battalions she is coddling in Davao City are pocketing millions of public funds supposedly for salaries of CAFGU members or remuneration for mass fake surrenders.

Revolutionary forces in the Southern Mindanao are one with the national leadership in supporting the resumption of the peace negotiations, as all NPA units around the region are committed to observing the CPP’s ceasefire order, a mark of an army that genuinely espouses peace and the people’s interests. Meanwhile, reports from the ground confirm that AFP troops continue to conduct combat operations despite their own ceasefire declaration.

While most politicians from the reactionary bureaucracy express support for the resumption of the formal negotiations, GRP Mayor Sara chooses to spew out a palpably contradictory opinion to the GRP president’s recent policy statement with regards to peace. One that clearly displays her charmed ruling class origin, bereft of the troubles of the working class, and enjoying the benefits of the semi-feudal and semi-colonial Philippine society.

RUBI DEL MUNDO
Spokesperson
NDFP-SMR

https://ndfp.org/on-sara-dutertes-anti-peace-rhetoric/