LABOR Secretary Silvestre Bello remains optimistic that the joint bilateral ceasefire agreement between the government and the National Democratic Front (NDF) would be signed on December 10.
Speaking to reporters, Bello, the government’s peace negotiator, admitted that the two parties have yet to reach a consensus on some of the provisions on the joint permanent ceasefire that is being crafted.
Bello said that even though the government and the NDF have agreed to come up with a bilateral truce, there are ramifications that are confronting them.
“After our October talks, we agreed that [on] November or October 26, we would sign joint ceasefire. But then, there are terms and conditions that have not yet reached a consensus. That’s difficult,” Bello said.
“We have not yet come up with a consensus on this term of reference like for example, what is considered as battle zone, who constitute the monitoring team that will monitor The implementation and compliance with ceasefire,” he added.
The government and the NDF, during their first round of talks, have agreed to make their separate indefinite unilateral ceasefire into a joint, bilateral ceasefire.
Despite the apparent discord, Bello said he is still looking forward to the signing of the bilateral ceasefire document.
“Still, we are not giving up that by December 10, we will come up with the signing of the joint bilateral permanent ceasefire. Let’s not forget about that – permanent ceasefire, which will eventually lead to the cessation of hostilities,” he said.
But if the bilateral agreement will not be inked, Bello said he had a “gentleman’s agreement” with NDF chief peace negotiator Fidel Agcaoili to extend their respective unilateral ceasefire declarations.
The agreement had developed when Bello went to Cebu last Friday and met Agcaoili in the plane, giving him the chance to talk to him regarding the pending bilateral ceasefire deal.
“We had occasion to meet and explain to him about the difficulty of getting it, final signing of the bilateral because of the definition of terms. But we had gentleman’s agreement that we may make some announcement regarding the unilateral ceasefire,” Bello said.
“I said, For the sake of the public, it is perhaps better that we have an announcement that we are extending [the unilateral ceasefire] to have our countrymen a peace of mind, especially during the Christmas season. So that’s very possible.” (Sunnex)
