LOILO CITY, Philippines-As the government tries to forge peace with communist rebels in Oslo, a decade-old peace agreement with their breakaway comrades in the Visayas is faltering. “We are waiting for the government to deliver on its promise to address poverty and social injustice that has been the root cause of the armed conflict,” Veronica Tabara says. She says her group is still in the “confidence-building stage” of the peace process.
Tabara is a negotiator of the Rebolusyonaryong Partido ng Manggagawa-Pilipinas/Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade (RPM-P/RPA-ABB), the end-result of a series of splits within the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) over ideological differences since the late 1980s.
She says the RPA-ABB has around 300 armed men, while the RPM-P has more than 1,000 members. According to police and military sources, the RPA-ABB is mainly concentrated in Janiuay, Cabatuan, Leon and Tigbauan towns in Iloilo and in the northern towns of Negros.
In 1998, the Metro Manila-based ABB led by Nilo de la Cruz merged with Arturo Tabara’s political party, RPM-P, and its armed wing, the RPA—which were mainly based in the Visayas. The ABB had been known as the CPP’s urban strike force during the Marcos dictatorship.
The ABB and the RPM-P/RPA bolted from the mainstream CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), in the mid-1990s.
In December 2000, Tabara and De la Cruz signed a five-page “interim” peace agreement with the government in the presence of then President Joseph Estrada and business tycoon Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco Jr. in Don Salvador Benedicto town in Negros Occidental.
It was hoped that a final settlement would be made with the forging of a “memorandum of agreement” for the demobilization and disarmament of RPM-P/RPA-ABB forces.
Under the interim deal, both sides also formally declared a cessation of armed hostilities and agreed to implement “confidence-building” measures, including the release of 235 political prisoners identified by the breakaway rebels and a P10-million grant under a “reintegration fund” for their members and freed comrades.
Within the next three years, the government promised to release P500 million for development projects for the rebels’ families and beneficiaries. The projects would be used for livelihood, housing assistance, education and training, primary health care, agricultural and irrigation facilities, farm-to-market roads, micro-finance and credit programs.
Veronica Tabara, who is also the wife of the RPM-P/RPA leader, cited several factors for the delay in the implementation of the accord.
For one, Estrada was ousted during the Edsa II People Power Revolution in January 2001, barely a month after the signing. It took two years for the succeeding administration of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to affirm the deal while the bureaucracy was slow in fulfilling the government’s promises, Tabara said.
Fund releases
The Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Opapp), however, reported that as of January, the government was implementing infrastructure projects worth P344.5 million in the 147 barangays identified by the two parties.
These barangays are mostly located on Panay and Negros Islands, where the breakaway faction is based. A few are in Metro Manila and Davao City.
The government also released P5 million for 147 detainees and their families, according to the Opapp report, while all but 52 political prisoners identified by the RPM-P/RPA/ABB were freed.
But Rustico Cutanda, a Panay-based leader of the De la Cruz faction of the RPM-P/RPA-ABB and member of the Joint Enforcement and Monitoring Committee created under the peace agreement, said the government had not complied with most of its commitments.
Cutanda said the fund releases were made through “regular legal processes” and not due to the peace deal.
He also questioned the release of the “reintegration fund,” saying there was “no clear accounting” and that the bulk of the amount went to Mindanao.
His group estimated that only around P60 million was actually released since the rest were part of the Kalahi para sa Kalayaan (K4K), another government program for poverty alleviation in insurgency-affected areas.
While the government does not have a policy to attack rebel forces, it failed to ensure their safety, Cutanda said. Since 2000, about 300 rebels have been arrested or killed, he said.
The NPA has owned up to the 2005 assassinations of Arturo Tabara and Daniel Batoy, RPA-ABB commander in Panay, and several other leaders of the breakaway group.
Clashes between the NPA and RPA-ABB have erupted, particularly during the early years after the split. In February 2003, two NPA guerrillas were killed while an RPA-ABB member was wounded in a clash between the two groups in Sta. Catalina town in Negros Oriental.
Cutanda said the police and the military also arrested RPM-P/RPA-ABB members despite their coordination with the Philippine National Police and compliance with the peace agreement’s guidelines.
The PNP has denied any violation of the agreement and insisted that the rebels were the ones committing breaches.
Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz, PNP chief for operations and plans in Western Visayas, cited instances when the rebels would openly display their firearms in violation of guidelines that this was only for defensive purposes. The accord allows the display of guns only during activities and operations supervised by the PNP, he said.
Several RPA-ABB members have been arrested for carrying high-powered and long firearms. Under the deal, only 100 rebels are allowed to carry handguns.
During the 2007 election period, Cutanda and Demetrio Capilastique, RPA-ABB commander in Panay, were arrested at a police checkpoint in Sta. Barbara town in Iloilo. Policemen recovered five firearms and P300,000 in cash.
Criminal charges have also been filed against some members, including those allegedly involved in the killing of a policeman and the wounding of two others in Janiuay town in Iloilo on March 28, 2008.
“We have received reports of the involvement of some of their members in criminal acts, including extortion and gun-for-hire,” De la Paz said.
Another split
Both factions of the breakaway rebel group have repeatedly denied the allegations. This major split in leadership has somehow complicated the implementation of the peace agreement.
In May 2007, the group of Veronica Tabara and RPA-ABB national commander Stephen Paduano, alias Carapali Lualhati, broke away from De la Cruz, the RPM-P chair, claiming that it had the bulk of the rebel forces.
De la Cruz had earlier announced the expulsion of Paduano, RPM-P secretary general Tabara, and RPM-P Mindanao head Ariel Sabandar for corruption, sowing intrigues and causing party disunity during a plenum in April 2007.
Paduano countered that De la Cruz was usurping authority and that the latter’s faction was involved in criminal activities, including gun-for-hire.
The government has adopted a hands-off policy on the internal rift, but the PNP fears that it may turn violent.
Chief Supt. Cipriano Querol Jr., Western Visayas police director, said the split had created problems in dealing with the breakaway rebel group.
Still, both factions and the government are optimistic that the peace process will move on under the Aquino administration.
Veronica Tabara says her group is “keeping [its] fingers crossed” that a final peace agreement will be reached and the problems of poverty and human rights violations will be addressed.
Nestor Burgos & Carla Gomez, Phil. Daily Inquirer