Philippine Peace Linked to Basic Services

A top aide to President Corazon Aquino conceded Thursday that the government has failed to stem the Communist insurgency because it has not delivered basic goods and services to the Philippine people.

Unveiling what was described as a comprehensive government plan to bring peace to the troubled nation, Alfredo Bengzon, who has been designated “national peace commissioner,” said that no peace is possible until “the government bureaucracy responds to community needs.”

“In the areas ravaged by revolutionary conflict, government services need to come home to the doorsteps of the deprived,” Bengzon told a gathering of reporters, former dissidents and Roman Catholic nuns and priests.

Bengzon, a confidant of the president and secretary of health in her Cabinet, outlined a program aimed at ending the insurgency.

Lists Needed Steps

He said the government must improve education, health care, aid to farmers, supplies of water and electricity and basic employment opportunities. Further, he said, the civil and military authorities must agree on “the fundamental approaches to peace, such as land reform, protection of human rights, preservation of public safety, integrity of electoral processes and regional autonomy.”

Only after the government has become an effective force in the rural provinces where three-fourths of the people live, he said, can there be successful negotiations with the rebels.

Representatives of Aquino held negotiations with rebel leaders last year, and they produced a 60-day truce that ended with violence last February. Many analysts now say that the cease-fire favored the rebels because the government failed to exploit the temporary peace by starting development projects that would earn it support in rebel-controlled regions.

1,800 Killed This Year

Bengzon was clearly critical of the government’s performance in the 18 months since Aquino took office. More than 1,800 soldiers, rebels and noncombatants have been killed in the insurgency this year, and Bengzon declared, “Our reconstruction is becoming more expensive than our revolution”--a reference to the uprising that brought down the government of President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

“For too long,” Bengzon said, “we have hoped for peace, cried for peace, prayed for peace. Now that we have freedom, let us consciously, actively and systematically build peace in our troubled communities.”