“Ung peace talks na sinusuportahan ko, ay ung socio-economic na peace. Hindi lang ung walang bakbakan. Kasi ung bakbakan naman is just a product of socio economic malfunctioning (The peace talk that I am supporting is the socio economic kind of peace. Not only the absence of conflict because conflict is just a product of socio economic malfunctioning.),” Gargar said in a press conference last Monday.
Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte said that a New People’s Army (NPA) leader had asked him to help the Manobo evacuees who left their homes three weeks ago because of alleged abuses and threats perpetrated by the Army.
The National Democratic Front and a Protestant church formation in Mindanao want a stop on large-scale mining and military activities in indigenous areas such as in Talaingod, Davao del Norte. They also asked for the resumption of peace talks.
A Moro National Liberation Front faction has urged Malacañang to resolve the three remaining issues on territory, provisional government and definition and sharing of revenues of strategic minerals to complete the government commitment to pass an amended law to implement the final peace agreement they reached in 1996.
The question cropped up after the arrest last week of ranking Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) leaders Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria, even as the stalled peace negotiation between the two parties remained hazy and uncertain.