Permanent truce with NPA eyed

The government expressed hopes yesterday that a unilateral Christmas ceasefire it has implemented with communist rebels could become a permanent truce.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), however, have not yet agreed to a Christmas season ceasefire but have said they are merely "studying the possibility" of such a truce.

Presidential Spokesman Ignacio Bunye said the government would welcome any reciprocal action from the communists but added that "it would be more beneficial if both the government and the CPP-NPA can come up with a lasting ceasefire."

"We believe it is high time that lasting peace be given a chance," he said.

He cited the ceasefire in place between the government and the main Muslim separatist group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which has paved the way for formal peace talks between the two sides.

Bunye said Filipinos in rural areas had had enough of the CPP’s three-decade-long Maoist insurgency, adding "it is high time that lasting peace be given a chance."

Defense Secretary Eduardo Ermita, meanwhile, decried a communist raid on a police station in Carangalan, Nueva Ecija, that netted the rebels five M-16 rifles last Wednesday, just before the government’s 20-day Christmas ceasefire took effect.

Ermita said incidents such as these raised questions about the sincerity of the rebels in seeking peace.

Mrs. Arroyo declared a Dece. 16-to-Jan. 5 unilateral ceasefire with the communists in the spirit of the Christmas season and urged the rebels to reciprocate.

Armed Forces chief Lt. Gen. Efren Abu, however, warned he would ask Mrs. Arroyo to lift the ceasefire if the NPA continued to stage attacks.

If Abu makes the request, Malacañang will carefully study it before making any decision, Ermita said.

"We hope that what happened in Carangalan will not happen again," he said. "We expect everyone to give peace and humility a chance in the spirit of Christmas. We must think of the interest of the majority, not only of our own. We don’t need to implement propaganda at this time. What is important is we must have the spirit of Christmas in actuality because of the ceasefire."

The government and the 8,000-strong CPP-NPA have traditionally called ceasefires during the Christmas season.

The communists called off peace talks with the government in August, accusing the Arroyo administration of not doing enough to persuade the United States and the European Union to remove them from their list of foreign terrorist organizations.

The CPP argues that it is a legitimate revolutionary organization.

In a speech at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City yesterday, US Ambassador Francis Ricciardone tagged the communist rebels as "bandits who claim to act in the name of the people whom they terrorize." — AFP, Jose Rodel Clapano, Jaime Laude