Peace initiatives boost economic progress: Ramos

Peace initiatives boost economic progress: Ramos

MANILA (AFP): President Fidel Ramos said yesterday that his peace initiatives with the Philippines' three main rebel groups had opened the door for economic development in regions formerly in the grip of the insurgents.

Ramos brushed aside criticism that his government was bending too far to accommodate the rebels' demands. He challenged critics to join him on his trips to the provinces to talk to residents.

"It is an honorable peace, a just peace and an enduring peace that we are working on," Ramos told a news conference. "This takes a lot of patience. This can't be done instantly," he added.

The president has been criticized for allowing the talks to be held abroad. There are also fears that the government might agree to the demands by Moslem rebels for control of most of the country's south.

Peace talks are underway with right-wing military rebels -- whose coup attempts weighed down the economy under former president Corazon Aquino -- and guerrillas of the Moslem rebel group Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) in the south.

Formal negotiations with the communist-led National Democratic Front (NDF) got bogged down in Belgium last month over a dispute on the release of a jailed communist guerrilla leader.

But Ramos said that regions of the country which were formerly combat zones are now seeing the fruits of peace in their rapid economic development.

He cited the booming cities of Zamboanga, Davao and General Santos in the main southern island of Mindanao -- which are part of a proposed East Asian Growth Area with Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia.

In the 1980s Communist urban guerrillas were strong in these southern cities, as their assassination squads called Sparrows sowed fear in the streets.

But Ramos pointed out that residents in these and other areas are "now seeing the wisdom of this peace process because they are also enjoying a steady development as a result of improved peace and order conditions in their respective communities."