PEPP STATEMENT: Peace must be based on Justice!

A PEPP statement on Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s first three years in office

“‘They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, ‘when there is no peace.’” — Jeremiah 6:14 (NIV)

On July 28, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. will deliver his fourth State of the Nation Address (SONA) to the Filipino people, a people who have been yearning for peace based on justice for so long.

Nearly two years (after) the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) declared “the need to unite as a nation in order to urgently […] resolve the reasons for the armed conflict,” as reflected in their signing of the Oslo Joint Statement on November 23, 2023, formal peace negotiations between the government and the NDFP have yet to resume, after being stalled since 2017. At present, both parties remain engaged in exploratory talks.

Meanwhile the root causes of the armed conflict continue to worsen like a festering wound. This is reflected in the rising number of Filipinos who consider themselves poor, the increasing number of families experiencing involuntary hunger, workers with stagnant wages that continue to fall short of basic needs, landless farmers getting shortchanged of their toil, fisherfolk being cast out of their traditional fishing grounds, and militarized indigenous communities being ejected from their ancestral domains to give way to big “development projects”. 

The recent onslaught of typhoons which resulted in massive flooding also shows the further marginalization of many Filipinos. Despite the hardships faced by ordinary Filipinos, a handful few get richer, exacerbating the widening inequality between the haves and have nots.

To top it off, there is also the worsening human rights and international humanitarian law violations and continuing weaponization of laws which contribute greatly to the culture of impunity. It is also a growing concern that past peace agreements such as the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) are undermined.

Despite the Supreme Court ruling in February 2024 declaring that “red-tagging, vilification, labeling, and guilt by association threaten a person’s right to life, liberty, or security,” the Marcos Jr. administration has refused to take concrete action to end the practice of red-tagging: an act human rights advocates have found often leads to harassment, arrests, or even assassinations. The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) has been pointed out by credible entities as the number one purveyor of red-tagging. Even the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Irene Khan, cited the task force as a “major culprit and instigator of red-tagging” and called for its abolition. Despite this, Pres. Marcos continues to empower the controversial NTF-ELCAC by assigning it to lead the implementation of the National Plan for Unity, Peace, and Development (NAP-UPD) 2025–2028.

Advocates have regarded the task force as a peace spoiler and called for its defunding and abolition. Therefore, we call on the President to rethink utilizing NTF-ELCAC as one of his ways in ending the armed conflict and promoting peace.

With only three years remaining in his term, it is but prudent for Pres. Marcos Jr. not to treat the wounds of the nation lightly because there can be no peace without justice. The Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP), the broadest ecumenical formation of church leaders in the country today, reiterates that the GRP and the NDFP should engage in peace negotiations that will not demand the surrender of the other but will truly address the roots of the armed conflict. We maintain that it is a viable and less costly path towards genuine and lasting peace.

Without a principled and sustainable solution—a peace negotiation that is compassionate, reconciliatory, collaborative, and committed—these unresolved issues will continue to drive armed resistance, ultimately devaluing the efforts of past peace negotiators who built and achieved progress in the peace process.

Signed and issued on this day 25th of July 2025. (Released to the public on July 27, 2025.)

(Sgd.) Archbishop Emeritus Antonio J. Ledesma, SJ, D.D.

Archdiocese of Cagayan de Oro City

Co-Chairperson, PEPP

(Sgd.) The Rt. Rev’d. Rex B. Reyes, Jr.

Episcopal Church in the Philippines

Co-Chairperson, PEPP

Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF)

(Sgd.) Bishop Emeritus Deogracias S. Iñiguez, Jr., D.D.

Diocese of Kalookan

Head, PEPP Secretariat

Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF)

(Sgd.) Sr. Mary John D. Mananzan, OSB

Office of Women and Gender Concerns-Conference of Major Superiors in the Philippines (OWGC-CMSP)

(Sgd.) Rev. Dr. Aldrin M. Peñamora

Executive Director, Peace and Reconciliation Commission-Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PARC-PCEC)

(Sgd.) Ms. Minnie Anne M. Calub

General Secretary, National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP)

The Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform (PEPP) is a platform for five church institutions/groups, namely the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), the Conference of Major Superiors in the Philippines (CMSP), the Philippine Council of Evangelical Churches (PCEC), and the Ecumenical Bishops’ Forum (EBF). It works toward a just and enduring peace by supporting the peace process between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).