NTF ELCAC Statement Regarding the Presidential Aspirants and Their Stand on the Bogus Peace Talks

The NTF ELCAC views with grave concern the public commitment made by four presidential candidates to resume the bogus peace talks (BPT) with the terrorist organization CPP NPA NDF.

It is either Vice President Leni Robredo, Mayor Isko Moreno, Senator Ping Lacson and Senator Manny Pacquiao have no idea about the true nature of these bogus peace talks and are thus ignorant about who it is they are dealing with or that they are indifferent to the grievous consequences of their actions on our people and future generations of Filipinos.

The bogus peace talks is a tool the CPP NPA NDF uses in their extensive armory to prolong the protracted war in the countryside with the express goal of overthrowing government through violent means–but not without first bringing great harm and suffering on our people.

For every single time the Philippine government committed the grievous error in judgement of engaging in bogus peace talks with this terrorist organization, the body count of our men and women in uniform reached sky-high and the recruitment of our children and the poorest among us into NPAs were off the charts.

In other words, these bogus peace talks are when this terrorist organization took undue advantage of government’s sincere efforts to broker peace and then cause even greater harm on our people to advance their seizure of political and economic power.

During these bogus peace talks too were when high ranking members of the CPP NPA NDF who committed grave crimes against our people were released and too, when NPA terrorists roamed freely without any fear of arrest because those bogus peace talks provided protection to these terrorists. In the countryside terrorism escalated during these BPT with the CPP NPA NDF taking their abuse and intimidation of the most helpless among us a notch higher, having been emboldened by the protection the BPT provided them.

Those bogus peace talks of the CPP NPA NDF with no less than the Philippine government sitting across the table and involving European nations have given the CPP NPA NDF the semblance of legitimacy and respectability necessary to get foreign funding.

In other words, the Philippine government going down to the level of these terrorists gives them the camouflage of respectability they need in the international arena to make it seem that they are what they claim to be–legitimate revolutionaries–rather than what it is they truly are: TERRORISTS.

The Philippine government has therefore learned the costly lesson that there is no peace to be had when dealing with terrorists and therefore we must never again negotiate with terrorists. Hence the firm and unequivocal termination of these bogus peace talks by our President.

It is no less alarming to the NTF ELCAC that the presidential aspirants who have shown such a grievous error in judgement are some of the most powerful people in our country right now –no less than the Vice President, 2 Senators and the Mayor of our country’s capital.

Because indeed, the pain and suffering of our people and the great harm done on our country by the CPP NPA NDF happened for over 5 decades because they did not act alone but have friends in high places who lent them cover and legitimacy the way these four are doing now.

By agreeing to resume peace talks with the CPP NPA NDF, VP Robredo, Senators Lacson and Pacquiao and Mayor Isko have once again given this bogus peace talks an appearance of constitutionality and justice even. And in doing so, have harmed the country they claim to love.

And they have done so using the power of the mighty Offices they hold.

If they are sincere in their love for country, these four presidential aspirants who have had the great audacity to ask that we trust them with the lives of our children and our country, must educate themselves about the nature of the enemy, the CPP NPA NDF and the methods they use to bring to great destruction to our people. And vow to never again negotiate with terrorists.

They must instead vow to support and pour funds on the highly successful localized peace process–the GENUINE peace talks—where over 24,000 violent extremists have peacefully surrendered and rejoined civil society and where entire guerilla fronts ALL OVER THE COUNTRY have been dismantled as a direct result of ordinary citizens joining hands with the AFP finally experiencing government’s care and roundly rejecting this inhumane and violent ideology.

Those who have the courage to ask that we trust them must first of all be worthy of our trust.

And unless these four presidential aspirants educate themselves first about those bogus peace talks and the nature of the beast, CPP NPA NDF, and change their minds about the egregious pronouncements they have made to resume peace talks, it is but right to say that they have clearly shown the Filipino people that they are not worthy of the trust they ask from us and are unfit to hold the highest office of the land.

Undersecretary Lorraine Marie T. Badoy

NTF ELCAC Spokesperson for Sectoral Concerns