A PIECE FOR PEACE | Ask and You Will Be Forgiven

DAVAO CITY — When President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. issued Proclamation No. 404 series of 2023, granting amnesty to former members of the Communist Party of the Philippines–New People’s Army–National Democratic Front (CPP–NPA–NDF), it rekindled a hope that had long been dimmed. For many who had already surrendered, the amnesty was not something they demanded; it was a gift — a gesture of goodwill, compassion, and reconciliation.

Noteworthy to say that the former rebels DID NOT ASK for the amnesty; it was GIVEN BY the State, characterized by its compassion, and a gesture of goodwill exercised by the President in pursuit of reconciliation, unity, and just lasting peace. For his part, the Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation, and Unity, Secretary Carlito Galvez, Jr., recognized that the transformation of a former rebel is incomplete without the amnesty, since “transformation” is the central part in the implementation of the peace agreement.

Even without a formal peace agreement with the Reds, those who had long surrendered should be accorded consistent legal support — and the grant of amnesty is among them. Government interventions are useless when former rebels’ liberty and freedom of locomotion are constrained due to their pending criminal cases. The transformation of former rebels only begins when they’re FREE. That is, they can move around without fear of being arrested, their civil and political rights are restored, socio-economic interventions are provided, and most of all, they can go back to their families and communities as renewed individuals free from the stigma of the past.

We laud the President and the OPAPRU for coming up with a practical and doable mechanism in the interest of former members of the CPP–NPA–NDF who provided crucial intelligence that led to the dismantling of guerrilla fronts across the country, and who now serve as peace advocates — standing side by side with national agencies and local government units as partners in peace.

BUT TO UNDERSTAND the weight of this amnesty, we must look back to when peace itself was fractured. When former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte terminated the peace negotiations with the CPP–NPA–NDF in 2017 because the communist group failed to show “sincerity and commitment” in dealing with the government, it did not only abandon a supposed sincere peace dialogue, it also shattered the nation’s aspiration for a genuine and just lasting peace.

Like a sharp, rusty dagger, Proclamation No. 360 pierced brutally through those aspirations. It paved the way for the State to wield its police power with renewed force, as it became hell-bent on exterminating the remaining communist rebels — like a Thanos’ snap.

On one hand, blood was spilled and countless lives were lost as violence gripped even the remotest sitios of the hinterlands — areas that became, in time, both a haven of deception for the CPP–NPA–NDF and a battleground for the State’s victories.

Sans the peace agreement between the GRP and the CPP–NPA–NDF, the Duterte administration’s NTF–ELCAC nonetheless succeeded in employing legal offensives against the active rebels of the communist group. The NTF–ELCAC’s Legal Cooperation Clusters across the country pressed charges against high-ranking NPA commanders in various provinces believed to be strongholds of the CPP–NPA–NDF.

Much like a national prosecutorial arm forged in principle, the LCC became the State’s sentinel against deception and violence. It was credited with centralizing the government’s response to defend the country and safeguard the public against the radical Maoist ideology and the dogma of “HATE” against the State and its instrumentalities. And true indeed to LCC’s mandate, many cases against NPA members and their supporters were filed — but few remained alive.

On the other hand, many former members of the CPP–NPA–NDF, who had long returned to the fold of the law, remained in military camps and detention facilities — defenseless, caught between the stigma of their past and the indifference of the State that had promised them liberty. They waited in silence for the justice and compassion that peace was supposed to bring.

FAST FORWARD TO 2023, the Marcos administration took a different path — not through negotiations but through reconciliation in action. The amnesty under Proclamation No. 404 sought to address the “roots of the armed conflict” not by reviving old dialogues but by closing the legal gaps that prevented former rebels from living fully as citizens once again. It is not merely a legal instrument; it is the State’s moral act of forgiveness.

Looking forward, the breakdown of talks in 2017 was more than a procedural collapse; it was a moral one. It reflected the exhaustion of both Parties, and perhaps, the public’s fading belief that peace could still be negotiated in good faith. If the peace process is ever to be revived, the State must also examine its own failings — the injustices that have festered in the margins, the poverty that feeds rebellion, and the arrogance that mistakes power for righteousness.

Peace cannot be decreed, nor can it be imposed by victory. It requires the courage to ask — and to forgive.

A Piece for Peace by Maria Pariscova examines the forces that divide and the choices that reconcile. Through grounded analysis and clear conviction, this column argues that peace is not a pause in conflict but a policy, a practice, and a public duty.