THE CONDITIONS faced by the Filipino people today, whether in Negros, Panay or other parts of the country, are not isolated or accidental. They are rooted in a social system marked by bureaucrat capitalism, feudal exploitation by landlords, and comprador interests tied to foreign domination, particularly that of US imperialism. In this system, wealth and power remain concentrated in the hands of a few, while the majority of peasants, workers, urban poor, indigenous people, women, and youth, among others, continue to face poverty, landlessness, unemployment, and rising costs of living.
For many Filipinos, especially the youth, these realities raise urgent questions about their future. Faced with a system that offers little meaningful change, the people are compelled to respond in different ways. Many choose to arouse, organize, mobilize, and assert their rights through legal and peaceful means. Others, seeing no genuine avenue for reform and confronted by a state that uses its laws, courts, and armed forces to preserve the status quo, have opted to wage armed struggle as a means to change the system.
At the center of the current crisis is the state’s continued reliance on violence and repression. Instead of addressing the root causes of poverty and inequality, the state deploys its coercive machinery against its own people. In Panay and across the country, activists, community leaders, and ordinary citizens have faced red-tagging, surveillance, harassment, fabricated charges, abductions, and killings. These are part of a broader pattern of state violence aimed at silencing dissent and suppressing legitimate demands for change.
At the same time, even in situations of armed conflict, there are established rules under international humanitarian law (IHL) that must be respected. Civilians, the wounded, and those who are no longer participating in hostilities must be protected. They must not be harmed, tortured, or killed, and their dignity must be upheld at all times. Respect for human rights and IHL is not optional, but it is an obligation that binds all parties, especially the state, which bears primary responsibility to uphold these standards.
These realities point to a clear logical conclusion: lasting peace cannot be achieved through state violence and repression. History has shown that such measures do not resolve the legitimate grievances of the people but only deepen unrest and fuel greater resistance.
Bagong Alyansang Makabayan – Panay, therefore, calls on the Marcos Jr. administration for the urgent resumption of peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines as a meaningful step toward addressing the root causes of armed conflict. A genuine peace process must confront the structural problems of inequality, landlessness, and foreign domination, and work toward solutions that uphold the rights and welfare of the Filipino people, landlessness, and foreign domination, and work toward solutions that uphold the rights and welfare of the Filipino people.
We slam Defense Secretary Gibo Teodoro’s closed-mindedness to the prospects of peace talks, while he covers up the crimes of military forces in the countryside and kowtows to US warmongering and plunder in our territory. He seems to be unaware that previous rounds of negotiations have already produced substantive frameworks, including the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) as well as draft agreements on social and economic reforms addressing landlessness, rural development, national industrialization, and the protection of workers’ rights.
These gains show that peace talks are not empty exercises, but mechanisms for addressing the roots of armed conflict. A genuine peace process must build on these achievements and move forward by paving the way for reforms that address inequality, landlessness and foreign domination, and consistently uphold the rights and welfare of the Filipino people.
The Marcos Jr. administration must create the conditions necessary for the resumption of sincere and substantive peace negotiations; for instance, it must scrap the terror designation of the NDFP and its peace consultants, release consultants who have been illegally detained as political prisoners, and affirm its commitment to protections for consultants under the Joint Agreement on safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG). Additionally, the state must end all forms of human rights violations, uphold and respect IHL at all times, and ensure accountability for all abuses committed by its forces.
We call on the Filipino people to continue asserting our rights and advancing our collective interests. The struggle for just and lasting peace must continue. – BAGONG ALYANSANG MAKABAYAN – PANAY <bayanpanay2014@gmail.com>
