Press Release
February 27, 2007

ANGARA WANTS EXPERTS TO HEAD PEACE PANEL

Senator Edgardo J. Angara today proposed the creation of a special panel of the brightest and most committed Filipinos to study ways to end a long-drawn communist insurgency which has survived despite the virtual extinction of similar movements elsewhere.

Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Peace and Reconciliation, also said that the panel should be headed by former Senate President Jovito Salonga and former University of the Philippines President Francisco Nemenzo.

Salonga and Nemenzo have the brilliance, the experience and the commitment required to lead a panel of such sensitive task, which will deal with a problem of vital importance to the search for lasting peace, said Angara .

Angara said that since the late 1980s , several peace panels have talked peace with the communist insurgents only to end up in either stalemate or failure.

The strategy to go direct to the negotiating table without a broad grasp of the dynamic of the communist movement and under what conditions should it lay down its arms and join the political mainstream and the parliamentary struggle has been proven wrong. We have to start anew, and creating the special study panel to be headed by Jovy Salonga and Dodong Nemenzo is the first step in a long struggle to secure lasting peace, said Angara.

Angara said a study panel could show us the pathways into a successful negotiation with the Revolutionary Left.

Angara noted that he does not intend to draw from the creation of the Iraq Study Group which recently studied the Iraq problem for the United States government.

The Iraq problem of the US is a foreign policy problem. The communist insurgency is a homegrown insurgency that has derived its strength from massive poverty and disenchantment with government, said Angara.

The communist insurgency in the Philippines was a recent cover story of the Asian edition of the globally-circulated Time newsmagazine under the apt headline of War Without End.

We are sad because other countries get cover stories because of their surging economies and unprecedented level of growth. We are still stuck in this quagmire, said Angara.

China is on a roll. Vietnam is on the way to tiger status. Several former communist countries are now thriving members of the European Union. Here, sadly, we are still securing the peace, said Angara.

News Latest News Feed