Gov't peace adviser dismisses CPP-NDFP's CASER as obsolete, irrelevant

Presidential Peace Adviser Carlito Galvez Jr. said that Filipinos did not need the Comprehensive Agreement on Social Economic Reforms (CASER), a joint agreement being formed between the Philippine government and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) regarding social and economic reforms, because of its obsolete framework and questionable provisions.

"CASER is based on an obsolete framework and is no longer relevant since it is largely based on the pre-industrialization and pre-globalization era. It is a formula for the surrender of the national government’s integrity as well as the state’s sovereignty,” Galvez argued in a Friday statement.

He added that CASER was "an irrelevant proposition and a copycat of the programs of the CPP-NPA-NDF as outlined in the plagiarized content of Jose Maria Sison's publication 'Philippine Society and Revolution.'”

According to the peace adviser, among the questionable provisions in the CASER were the ones on financing national industrialization, the demobilization of the AFP, and endorsing the involvement of the New People's Army in implementing land reform and other rural development programs.

"Clearly, the military shall lose its capability to carry out this crucial function once it is demobilized," explained a Galvez, a former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). "If the CPP-NPA-NDF does not have any hidden agenda, then why does it want the AFP to demobilize its troops and yet the rebel will not do the same with its armed wing?"

According to the USA chapter of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), CASER was considered the “meat” of the peace talks as it would contain the concrete steps needed to solve the problems of poverty, social backwardness, and lack of social justice that were the root of the communist insurgency.

However, Galvez countered that CASER was rather a "product of a secret backchannel maneuver by communist insurgents."

"There was zero consultation with the government’s economic team, security forces, local agencies, and local government units, and most importantly, the Filipino people who have suffered the most during this decades-long armed conflict," Galvez said.

For the presidential peace advisor, genuine peace could only be achieved by normalizing residents' way of life, and ending armed conflict through disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration or the normalization of rebels.

He said that the government was doing its part in implementing major policy reforms on agrarian reform, anti-poverty social programs, education, universal healthcare, labor and employment, and indigenous people’s rights.

“What the government is doing now is way beyond what CASER can achieve,” he said.

"These [government's] programs successfully lifted more than six million Filipinos from poverty, dramatically reduced unemployment, distributed more than hundred thousand hectares of land, free education and irrigation, and provided universal health care to marginalized individuals," Galvez claimed. — Angelica Y. Yang/DVM, GMA News