Filipino peace train diverted as Duterte grapples with insurgency  

But the important thing – to borrow a metaphor close to Philippine President Duterte’s railway-obsessed heart – is that it’s back on track with the fourth round of negotiations in Europe finally underway.
Several weeks ago Duterte threw a spanner in the works and the train suddenly juddered to a halt. Negotiators from the insurgent National Democratic Front (NDF) were disoriented, while their counterparts from the government were also taken by surprise. Can the peace negotiations survive what appears to be Duterte’s change of heart?
The answer depends in part on whether he has merely changed tactics, or changed strategy. It appears Duterte has been forced to recalibrate his public approach to the negotiations because of increasing resistance from the military and defence department. Still smarting from the decision to release communist leaders Benito and Wilma Tiamzon last year to allow them to help in peace talks, the security establishment is sensitive to concessions the Duterte administration has granted the communist movement.
Candid as always, the president said recently he could no longer follow through on his promise to release hundreds of political prisoners because it would mean having fewer cards left to play with in the protracted negotiations. Last Sunday, he outlined a set of four conditions – what he called his “barest conditionalities” – which he said needed to be met before the peace talks can resume. These include a signed bilateral permanent ceasefire, an end to the insurgents’ practice of collecting so-called revolutionary taxes, an acknowledgement by the communists that they cannot claim any territory in the country as their own, and the release of all its prisoners.
Rather than denying the communist movement space to move, these conditions appear aimed to relieve pressure on the Duterte administration from the security establishment.
Yet the picture is complicated by rumours that Duterte has changed his about the true nature of the communist insurgency. The president describes himself as a socialist and a long-time friend of the rebels in his area, but their increasingly audacious excursions into non-conflict zones may have changed that view. As city mayor, he could afford to allow a massive funeral march for a communist-insurgent leader. As president and commander in chief, he would be courting possible impeachment with such support.
But whether the new realities that have transformed the most optimistic cycle of the on-again, off-again peace meetings into what chief government negotiator Silvestre Bello now calls “very difficult and exacting” talks were triggered by a change in the president’s tactics, or a change in his overall strategy, the fact remains that negotiations are the most certain road to lasting peace. We should support the ongoing round of talks, and hope for a successful outcome.