Ceasefire: Means to an End

Excerpt from the internal memorandum of the CPP-NPA entitled “Mga Puntong Patnubay sa Pag-iral ng Interim Ceasefire ng CPP-NPA-NDF at Indefinite Ceasefire ng GRP” recovered from two top ranking member of the CPP-NPA-NDF who were both arrested in 2017. The document specifies the guidance of the CPP’s Central Committee to its territorial organs during the conduct of peace process. It shows how the CPP-NPA-NDF exploits the peace process with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) 

to advance their deceitful agenda, and not the real agenda of peace. (Source: Captured enemy-documents)

Why then do the communists even agree to peace negotiations when they know that they won’t achieve peace? “Well, because they get something out of it,” Victor quipped.

Jalandoni noted in an article he wrote years ago that through peace negotiations, the NDFP has been able “to draw benefits for the people by being firm on revolutionary principles and flexible in policy.” Because of peace negotiations, 56 out of 200 political prisoners held as of 2001 were released. Jalandoni (2001) even went as far as saying that the GRP always tries “to gain on the negotiating table what it cannot in the battlefield.”

These show that any peace negotiations with the CPP is pointless given that the rebels only use such actions to gain the upper hand in terms of policy, and regain momentum on the armed struggle front. “In plain terms, the CPP does not want peace to reign in the Philippines if the state leadership is not on their hands; or in other words, the primary goal of the CPP is to seize state power – nothing lesser than that,” Victor concluded. 

--THE WARS WITHIN (2020 / Copy&Share)