EDITORIAL - Bad faith

In just one election season, communists have staged three high-profile assassinations, hitting Tanauan Mayor Cesar Platon who was running for go-vernor of Batangas, Quezon Rep. Marcial Punzalan and Cagayan Rep. Rodolfo Aguinaldo. In perpetrating these atrocities, the communists and their military arm, the New People’s Army, managed to worm their way back into the consciousness of a nation preoccupied with political, economic and security concerns. The assassinations give the impression that the communists are not a spent force, and their political arm can thus hope to bargain from a position of strength in peace negotiations with the government.

An assassination is useful in other ways. Blood debts are settled. And with communists joining the political mainstream, political rivals can be conveniently – and permanently – eliminated. "Revolutionary taxation" in the countryside, the euphemism for communist extortion, has dampened investments and development in rural areas for many years. Now will politicians, including congressmen, also have to fear for their lives when they tangle with leftist colleagues? Have certain politicians turned the NPA into the best organized private army in the country?

Communists may sniff that they have been staging assassinations since the birth of their movement. Now split into several factions after bloody purges, the communists have also been killing each other over the years. One faction is suspected of staging the hit on labor leader Felimon Lagman earlier this year. There’s no ceasefire, so nothing stopped the NPA from murdering Aguinaldo. So why should the government take it against the National Democratic Front that Aguinaldo was cut down while peace talks were being held in Oslo?

Precisely because the crime was perpetrated while the two sides were supposedly exploring prospects for peace. Even the assassinations of Platon and Punzalan were staged when the government and the NDF were already laying down the groundwork for peace talks. No matter how you look at it, an assassination is no way to pursue peace. When staged in the middle of formal peace talks, an assassination smacks of bad faith. Aguinaldo’s murder can only make Filipinos question the sincerity of the communists in seeking peace. The assassination makes it harder for the government to sell its peace initiative to a people already sick of lawlessness in their midst.