Is the Philippine government of President Benigno Simeon Aquino III sincere in pursuing peace?

Is Aquino really sincere in pursuing peace in the Philippines?



The illegal arrest and detention of peace consultants is a step backward in the peace process.

This is the statement of the Asia Pacific Committee for Human Rights and Peace in the Philippines (APCHRPP) as it condemns the illegal arrest by the Philippine government’s security forces of Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria in Cebu, Philippines last March 22, 2014.

Both Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria are consultants of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and are helping very actively in the peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP/GPH) and the NDFP.

The GRP/GPH is imperiling the peace negotiations as well as violating agreements that it has signed with the NDFP with the arrest of Tiamzon and Austria. The specific agreement that the GRP/GPH violated is the JASIG, or the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees.

Both Tiamzon and Austria are holders of Document of Identification as well as a Letter of Acknowledgment signed by then GRP/GPH Negotiating Panel Chairman Silvestre H. Bello III. The said Letter of Acknowledgment states that the holder of the said Letter is entitled to safety and immunity guarantees as provided in the JASIG, which was signed by members of the negotiating panels of both the GRP/GPH and the NDFP on February 24, 1995.

Composed of various organizations and networks in many countries based in the Asia Pacific region, the APCHRPP is concerned that the Philippine government is only further prejudicing the peace negotiations by arresting and detaining peace consultants like Tiamzon and Austria.

The group also questions the inquest of Tiamzon and Austria in Camp Crame, a military camp in Manila, where they were also charged with additional cases like illegal possession of firearms and explosives. According to the lawyer of the two arrested peace consultants, Atty. Rachel Pastores, the validity of the inquest proceedings itself is in question while the new charges did not register in earlier reports of the arrest. Such proceedings being led by the government are highly contentious and unacceptable.

The arrest of Tiamzon and Austria comes on top of many human rights violations being committed in the Philippines. According to Philippine human rights group Karapatan, since Philippine president Benigno Aquino III took office, 169 cases of extrajudicial killings have been documented, in addition to 179 cases of frustrated extrajudicial killings, 19 cases of enforced disappearances, 86 cases of torture and 570 cases of illegal arrest and detention.

How will just and lasting peace be achieved when those in authority are the ones violating the very agreements that they signed with the NDFP? Why would they arrest those who are important to the peace negotiations? With this new development, it is hard not to cast doubts on the sincerity of the Philippine government to pursue peace when their actions clearly run counter to their statements.

If President Aquino and the Philippine government really want just and lasting peace, then it should heed the urgent demand to release immediately and unconditionally Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria.



For reference: Rev. Joram H. Calimutan,
Secretariat

U.S. Out of the Philippines! U.S. Out of Asia-Pacific!

Aquino Aligns with U.S. Military Build-Up in Asia-Pacific, a Threat to Peace in the Region

BAYAN USA
February 1, 2012

Filipino-Americans across the U.S., under the banner of BAYAN USA, express condemnation and disgust over the efforts of Philippine President Benigno Simeon "Noy-Noy" Aquino III to accommodate the "new" U.S. defense strategy that entails a so-called "rebalance to Asia", including an increase in U.S. military presence in the Philippines. BAYAN USA also denounces the U.S. government's Cold War-style media offensive against economic rival China as a pretext to justify its gross expansion of U.S. military powers in the Asia-Pacific in order to increase U.S. economic, political, and military investments in the region.

Economically-Motivated
Under neoliberalism, the U.S. economy is largely dependent on the Pacific Rim, particularly because of its export position. In 2010, the 21 economies that make up the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum accounted for 61% of U.S. exports ($775 billion) and 37% of private services exports ($205 billion). The U.S. economy's export position in the region accounts for nearly 5 million U.S. jobs. But for countries such as the Philippines, the U.S. investment and export position is at the heart of deepening crisis and poverty due to lack of sovereign claim to natural resources and territory. In line with their national interests, countries like the Philippines must wage fierce struggles against U.S. interventionism in order to assert their right to chart their own economic and political paths.

With China's economic growth threatening U.S. dominion over the region, and with Obama's push for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement that would outline a US-dominated free trade zone in the region, the U.S. government has announced it will shift its military focus away from Iraq and Afghanistan and renew its commitment to assert its position in Asia-Pacific. It has found a reliable stooge in the Aquino government. Recent negotiations framed as a Strategic Dialogue between top Washington security and defense officials and the Aquino administration have laid the ground work for the consolidation of the Philippines as a key U.S. military base location, serving as a permanent staging ground for U.S. military offensives, storage space for surveillance drones, resupply and refueling station for U.S. warships and aircrafts, as well as rest and recreational facility for U.S. servicemen.

In addition to violating Philippine national sovereignty, Aquino's compliance in accommodating U.S. saber-rattling seeks to undo the 1991 landmark decision of the Philippine Senate to reject the U.S. bases treaty that essentially shut down permanent U.S. military bases in Subic Bay and Clark Air Field by once again opening these ports for indefinite and "rotational" basing of U.S. troops and throughout the archipelago.

Aquino Positions the Philippines in the Crossfire
Not only does the Aquino government reach an all-time high in the barometer of U.S. puppetry with these negotiations, it is aligning the Philippines with a military scheme that will threaten peace in the entire Asia-Pacific region. The U.S. government, driven by its war-dependent economy, is expanding its military presence in Asia-Pacific region under the rhetoric of security in the South China Sea and in particular the territorial dispute over the Spratly Islands, when in fact it seeks an excuse to provoke military aggression and create a war-like situation against China that will boost its military-industrial complex at the expense of surrounding countries. Such compliance on the Aquino government's part will surely position the Filipino people in the middle of the crossfire.

Starting with the Philippine-American War of 1899, which marked the advent of U.S. imperialism onto the global stage at the turn of the 20th century, 113 years of U.S. geopolitical strategy in the region has left the Philippines with a tragic history and ongoing reality of U.S. military infestation whose social costs have burdened its people with untold pain and misery. From hosting the largest U.S. permanent foreign military bases to succumbing to the onerous US-RP Mutual Defense Treaty (MDT)—the mother of all unequal military treaties and agreements—to the virtually permanent Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), over one century of U.S. military presence in the country has been directly linked to the indiscriminate killings, rape and other sexual offenses, massive displacement of rural communities, waste, disease, and other forms of human rights abuses.

Call for Resistance & Solidarity
As Filipinos in the U.S., BAYAN USA sees concretely how both the Aquino and Obama governments—guardians of financial oligarchy—are acting in betrayal of the broad interest of the Filipino and American peoples. Just as the poor grow poorer in the Philippines under Aquino's failed economic policies, so are the working people in the U.S. forced to carry the heavy burden of paying for a debt crisis they did not create. As people's resistance to the intolerable 1% escalates amidst the crisis, BAYAN USA joins the call for greater solidarity between people in the U.S. struggling against the U.S. military-industrial complex and for economic equality and the Filipino people's ongoing struggle for genuine national independence and democracy. This must translate to greater efforts to expose and oppose the U.S. geopolitical strategy in the Asia-Pacific region as a scheme of the purveyors of crisis and war to maintain tight control over the region's wealth. People's resistance and firm solidarity are key in our efforts to frustrate U.S. interventionism in the region!

U.S. OUT OF THE PHILIPPINES!
U.S. OUT OF ASIA!
JUNK THE US-RP MUTUAL DEFENSE TREATY!
JUNK THE US-RP VISITING FORCES AGREEMENT!
UPHOLD PHILIPPINE NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!

Reference:
Bernadette Ellorin
Chairperson, BAYAN USA
chair@bayanusa.org