Even President Rodrigo Duterte and Philippine National Police Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa know that it would take more than public declarations of “all-out war” against the communist rebels to make good on their pledge to eliminate the communist insurgency in the country.
Whether one likes to acknowledge it or not, the causes for the ongoing communist rebellion remain rooted in the ground: a compromised land reform program, economic inequality and the resulting widening gap between rich and poor, and continued harassment of those who speak out against the abuses of those in authority.
But just as the communists drone on about the failures of government, their insistence on resorting to armed confrontations with the military and police has not won them any widespread, overwhelming public support contrary to their propaganda.
Again, we go back to the deaths of Guihulngan police chief Supt. Arnel Arpon and six policemen in Guihulngan City at the hands of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in an ambush that occurred in a hilly area of the city.
Whenever such an attack occurs, the rebels would usually cite the reasons for committing such an atrocity: the targets would be accused of committing abuses and crimes “against the people” and they should be punished by the “people’s army.”
But even granting that the President is committed to ending the insurgency whether through force or peace talks, he isn’t ignorant of the fact that it would take more than his term to achieve that goal.
For starters, the government should start cracking down on the extortion of NPA rebels on communities and businesses operating in the countryside under the guise of their so-called revolutionary tax.
By cutting their lifeline, the communist movement would be hard-pressed to raise funds for their comrades in the hills, who had to subsist on root crops and the sympathy of those they manage to recruit to their cause in order to help sustain their protracted, ultimately baseless insurgency against the government.
The military knows this, and yet some of them have been caught dealing with the communist rebels on more than one occasion — not out of sympathy and belief in their cause but due to personal profit.
If there is going to be any peace talks, the first and primary consideration for laying the groundwork should be the laying down of arms by the communist rebels, which they are loath to do. Instead, they keep repeating, as if they are in a position of strength to do so, their demands with their erroneous expectation that the government and the Filipino people that it represents will bend over backwards to their wishes.
That should not happen, and if the communist rebels want peace, they should build their case without resorting to murder and violence.