The President flew to Bacolod City yesterday after earlier announcing a major breakthrough in peace talks with the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawang Pilipino-Revolutionary Proletariat Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPMP-RPA-ABB).
The ceremonial signing signaled the start of a ceasefire between the government and the RPMP-RPA-ABB, paving the way for formal negotiations between communist leaders and the government panel headed by Agriculture Secretary Edgardo Angara.
Mr. Estrada turned over a check for P45 million as part of P500-million livelihood assistance to the Salvador Benedicto Cassava, Corn and Coffee Planters Multi-Purpose Cooperative. Most of the members of the cooperative are rebel returnees.
"With the cessation of armed hostilities... we can now explore a more lasting cooperation with each other to address the root causes of armed conflict and achieve progress and development," the President said. "Hopefully this will be replicated nationwide."
Joining the President in yesterday’s signing was businessman and former ambassador Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., whom he introduced as a "good friend" and the "intervenor" in the negotiations.
It marked the first time the two friends were seen in public since the jueteng scandal broke out early in October.
A majority of the landholdings of the Cojuangcos are located in this town, about 47 kilometers northwest of Bacolod. Don Salvador Benedicto has been made the stronghold of the RPA after its separation from the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) in 1993. The breakaway group has clashed with both the government and the CPP-NPA in the past.
RPA national commander Carapali Lualhati dismissed yesterday allegations that the faction has become a private army for Cojuangco and the town mayor.
Lualhati said they would implement a ceasefire but their troops would remain in the countryside.
"The peace settlement is not a surrender by our group, and we will continue police functions during the ceasefire period," the communist leader said.
The rebels also asked for political reforms and called impeachment proceedings against the President a waste of time.
Mr. Estrada is being tried in the Senate on charges he accepted hundreds of millions of pesos in payoffs from illegal gambling operators and kickbacks from tobacco taxes. He has denied the allegations.
Lualhati joined communist chief negotiator Nilo de la Cruz and RPMP chairman Arturo Tabara in signing the peace pact. De la Cruz once headed the ABB, a former communist assassination squad blamed for killing of dozens of policemen, politicians and soldiers in Metro Manila in the 1980s.
In recent years, the ABB has mainly attacked facilities of the country’s oil companies to protest oil price increases.
Angara, designated as panel head after the resignation of former Commission on Elections chairman Haydee Yorac, signed for the government.
The agriculture secretary hailed the signing, calling it "a milestone in the solution to the 30-year-old war being waged by insurgents."
Negros Occidental Gov. Rafael Coscolluela, who was among the original members of the government panel, was not invited to the signing.
Accused by critics of trying to derail the peace process, Coscolluela was replaced by Rep. Julio Ledesma (1st district, Negros Occidental). – With Paolo Romero