Negros execs push localized peace talks with Reds
BACOLOD CITY—Officials in Negros Occidental had endorsed the proposal by Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. for localized peace talks with communist rebels following a series of clashes in the province.
“We are willing to sit down and be part of the peace process on the local level,” Cadiz City Mayor Salvador Escalante, president of Negros Association of Chief Executives (Negros ACE), told the Inquirer.
During his visit here on Saturday, Teodoro rejected calls for a national level peace negotiations with communist rebels following bloody encounters between government forces and New People’s Army (NPA) rebels in Toboso and Cauayan towns.
The Toboso encounter on April 19 had caught national attention as it involved 19 fatalities.
The military had claimed they were all combatants while the NPA command in Negros identified only 10 as belonging to their group.
Human rights groups, meanwhile, asserted that six of the fatalities were not combatants, among them students and a local journalist.
Teodoro pushed for mobilizing “localized peace mechanisms” while also offering assistance to “returning rebels” as they transition into mainstream society.
Escalante said they were ready to participate in the localized peace process, reiterating an earlier call issued by the Negros ACE for the NPA and their leaders and fighters to abandon the path of armed struggle.
“The loss of life is too high a price to pay for peace and social equality in our country,” the Negros ACE statement read.
“We call on all communities to choose healing over retaliation, unity over division, and compassion over violence,” it added.
Parts of Negros communities have been covered by a previous peace agreement between the government and the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa-Pilipinas/Revolutionary Proletarian Army (RPMP/RPA) forged in December 2000. RPMP/RPA was a product of the split in the local communist movement in 1993.
