STALLED or not, the government is opening all avenues for engaging communities to do local peace negotiations to keep the country’s peace.
Thus insists Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) Undersecretary Danilo Encinas, who was here in Bohol last week for a workshop with Bohol peace advocates and their counterparts across the country.
He added that the government welcomes the removal of Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army/ National Democratic Front leader Joma Sison for the list of terrorists.
The Council of the European Union has deleted Sison as terrorist blacklist.
Over the development, Encinas shared Malacanang position of elation as this portends to good times especially with the possible resumption of the peace negotiations with the CPP-NPA-NDF.
Even before that however, the government has been looking at other areas of engagement to keep the peace talks going, even in the local levels.
Here in Bohol for the solidarity and learning workshop among six monitoring Local Monitoring Boards all over the country’s areas with ongoing localized peace efforts, Usec Encinas said a stalled peace talks do not stop the government from exhaustively seeking ways to make communities decide for peace.
Set up to form alliances between and among set up monitoring groups with their unique moves to keep the tables open for local peace negotiations between the government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front / Communist Party of the Philippines, the workshop also allows local groups monitoring the compliance and implementation of the agreements on the respect for human rights and the international humanitarian law (CARHRIHL).
With peace a top priority of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s administration, the she has called for everybody’s cooperation in a bid to forge a final peace negotiation with the left and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and sustain the gains in her peace and development efforts.
And with the relaxation of restrictions on Sison, government sources believe that it could expedite the resumption of negotiations with the CPP-NPA-NDF.
“Hopefully this will lead to good things as far as the peace process with them. This is really what we are concerned about here in the Philippines, the resumption of the peace negotiations with the left,” Presidential Spokesperson Gary Olivar said.
The resumption of peace talks between the government and the NDF was supposed to be held in Oslo, Norway last Aug. 28, but was put off after the NDF made another demand as a precondition.
“We are hopeful that Mr. Sison given this latest improvement in his circumstances abroad will now be in a better position to assist in facilitating the peace process between the CPP-NPA-NDF on one hand and the Philippine government on the other. That is our fervent hope,” Olivar said. (PIA)