By DIEGO MORRA
The Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP) has reiterated its call for the adm administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to resume its long-delayed peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), noting that 21 months have passed since both the NDFP and the government signed the Joint Statement on November 23, 2023 which promised to resume the negotiations that the unlamented ex-president Rodrigo Duterte unilaterally stopped in 2017.
In a statement signed on July 25, 2025 and released two days later, PEPP said the NDFP and the government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) should forthwith revive the talks despite the attempts to sabotage the same by militarist factions with the Marcos Jr. administration. The Oslo Joint Statement said the talks will resume after both parties recognized the “the need to unite as a nation in order to urgently … resolve the reasons for the armed conflict.” PEPP called on both the NDFP and the GRP to continue discussions with the end in view of wrapping up the exploratory talks and proceeding to formal comprehensive negotiations.
The PEPP statement was issued by its national coordinator Ofelia Cantor and signed by co-chairperson Archbishop Emeritus Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ, D.D., co-chairperson Rt. Rev. Rex B. Reyes Jr. of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines (ECP) and the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF), Bishop Emeritus Deogracias S. Iñiguez, Jr., D.D., head of the PEPP secretariat and the EBF, Sr. Mary John D. Mananzan, OSB, of the Office of Women and Gender Concerns-Conference of Major Superiors in the Philippines (OWGC-CMSP), Rev. Dr. Aldrin M. Peñamora, executive director, Peace and Reconciliation Commission-Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PARC-PCEC) and Ms. Minnie Anne M. Calub, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP.)
PEPP invoked Jeremiah 6:14 (NIV), which says “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, ‘when there is no peace,’” and urged Marcos Jr. to restore peace negotiations as a key plank of his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 28, 2025. It noted that Marcos Jr. failed to address the issue in his previous SONAs even as he will pursue peace talks with the NDFP, which the Filipino people have been clamoring for in the past eight years. PEPP stressed that comprehensive peace discussions cannot obtain unless injustice and the roots of the armed conflict are addressed resolutely.
“Meanwhile, the root causes of the armed conflict continue to worsen like a festering wound. This is reflected in the rising number of Filipinos who consider themselves poor, the increasing number of families experiencing involuntary hunger, workers with stagnant wages that continue to fall short of basic needs, landless farmers getting shortchanged of their toil, fisherfolk being cast out of their traditional fishing grounds, and militarized indigenous communities being ejected from their ancestral domains to give way to big ‘development projects.’ The recent onslaught of typhoons which resulted in massive flooding also shows the further marginalization of many Filipinos. Despite the hardships faced by ordinary Filipinos, a handful few get richer, exacerbating the widening inequality between the haves and have nots,” PEPP argued.
Violations of human rights and international humanitarian law have continued without let-up and the law has been weaponized to worsen the culture of impunity. PEPP reminded Marcos Jr. that previous peace agreements like the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) have been undermined, with many cases of summary killings of activists, suspected supporters of insurgents and their relatives being reported. Despite the Supreme Court (SC) ruling in February 2024 declaring that “red-tagging, vilification, labeling, and guilt by association threaten a person’s right to life, liberty, or security,” the Marcos Jr. administration has refused to take concrete action to end the practice of red-tagging, an act that human rights advocates have found to lead to harassment, arrests or even assassinations.
“The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has been pointed out by credible entities as the number one purveyor of red-tagging. Even the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Irene Khan, cited the task force as a ‘major culprit and instigator of red-tagging’ and called for its abolition,” PEPP said. Despite a mountain of evidence against NTF-ELCAC, Marcos Jr. continues to empower the agency by assigning it to lead the implementation of the National Plan for Unity, Peace, and Development (NAP-UPD) 2025–2028. “Advocates have regarded the task force as a peace spoiler and called for its defunding and abolition. Therefore, we call on the President to rethink utilizing NTF-ELCAC as one of his ways in ending the armed conflict and promoting peace,” PEPP argued.
With only three years remaining in his term, it is but prudent for Marcos Jr. not to treat the wounds of the nation lightly because there can be no peace without justice. PEPP, the broadest ecumenical formation of church leaders in the country today, reiterates that the GRP and the NDFP should engage in peace negotiations that will not demand the surrender of the other but will truly address the roots of the armed conflict. “We maintain that it is a viable and less costly path towards genuine and lasting peace. Without a principled and sustainable solution—a peace negotiation that is compassionate, reconciliatory, collaborative, and committed—these unresolved issues will continue to drive armed resistance, ultimately devaluing the efforts of past peace negotiators who built and achieved progress in the peace process,” PEPP concluded.
