THE ROOT CAUSES and social problems that lead to Filipinos joining the communist insurgency should themselves be addressed in order to confront the armed struggle, presidential candidates said (pic).
Labour leader Leody de Guzman pointed to what he said were the social ills that led to people rebelling against the government. All candidates were also in favour of resuming peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines.
“The way I see it, no person wants to take up arms and fight against the government forces in full battle gear with complete firearms and tanks...but the history of our country is one of oppression and violence,” he said in Filipino.
This came after the five presidential candidates who attended the debates were asked what vice-presidential candidate Walden Bello described as an anti-Left question: Are the CPP-NPA friends or foes?
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. — the son of the late dictator who began his bloody Martial Law regime on the pretense of saving the country from communism — said he rejects armed struggle, arguing that the government is right to defend itself against sectors that try to bring it down.
“Whatever the explanation is, I can’t agree with an ideology that includes armed struggle...that’s not in the law anymore,” he said.
In response, De Guzman said that he didn’t agree that the New People’s Army was simply made up of terrorists, saying the focus should be on the root problems its members were fighting for, including livelihood for workers and farmers, education, and health, among others.
“I see them as a revolutionary group calling for social change and justice,” he said in Filipino. “It’s the result of the exploitation by a number of those in society.”
De Guzman, the only candidate who refused to call the CPP terrorists, called for a “true democracy” in the country that “doesn’t just serve the interests of the few.”
“Until that becomes our system in society, opposition by way of strikes, protests, all the way to armed struggle, will not end.”
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