DUBBED as an “initial victory” in the third round of peace talks in Rome, the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front (NDF) on Saturday activated a joint monitoring body tasked to address and investigate alleged human rights abuses by state forces and communist rebels.
The two negotiating panels agreed on supplemental guidelines for the full operation of the Joint Monitoring Committee (JMC) under the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL), which came on the heels of warnings by the NDF that a peace pact was unlikely to be achieved before 2019, three years into President Rodrigo R. Duterte’s term.
JMC’s supplemental guidelines, which was also signed by NDF panel Chair Fidel Agcaoili, is a set of mechanisms addressing complaints of human rights and international humanitarian law violations by government forces and the armed wing of the NDF — the New People’s Army (NPA).
“I view the signing today of the supplemental guidelines, therefore, not only as affirmation of the Duterte administration’s commitment to human rights protection and to IHL adherence, but likewise a concrete dividend of this round of talks,” government panel chair and Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III was quoted as saying in a statement on Saturday by the Office of the Presidential Adviser for Peace Process (OPAPP).
Mr. Bello also assured the full operation of JMC “should not be difficult” under Mr. Duterte’s administration, citing “new and bold laws” such as “the law against enforced disappearance, Anti-Torture Act, International Humanitarian Law Act, Human Security Act, Writ of Amparo and the Writ of Kalikasan, among others.” These current laws date back to the Arroyo administration.
“The guidelines were crafted in 2004 but the draft of its supplement was not signed after the peace negotiations bogged down in 2011,” OPAPP explained in the same press release, adding:
“This initial victory also bodes well for the possible signing of the bilateral cease-fire, a most-awaited agreement to benefit the Filipino people, especially those living in conflict-affected areas.”
CARHRIHL is an agreement where “persons liable for violations and abuses of human rights shall be subject to investigation and, if evidence warrants, to prosecution and trial.”
The said pact also states that victims of human rights abuses or their survivors “shall be indemnified.”
Before the new round of talks started in Rome, the NDF had cautioned that government troops on the ground were jeopardizing the five-month old unilateral cease-fire. The organization had also expressed frustration with what it called the government’s “broken promises,” including the release of around 400 political detainees.
Mr. Duterte, who describes himself as a socialist, has expressed commitment to ending one of Asia’s longest-running insurgencies. He reactivated the peace process soon after taking office in June last year and appointed three leftists to his Cabinet.
Labor Secretary Silvestre H. Bello III
