Peace talks and social justice

Peace talks and social justice

Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J.

Quoting the article of Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J., President of Ateneo de Davao University, read at the peace forum in Davao with Fidel Agcaoili representing the NDFP, on June 8, 2016:

If today the CPP-NPA-NDF with its Marxian ideological roots talks peace with other Filipinos influenced by the faith in a compassionate God or with elective representatives of government under the 1987 Philippine Constitution, I suggest that what binds them together more than anything that separates them is a common concern for social justice.

Peace is achieved not in giving up social justice, but in achieving it. Peace cannot be achieved if the social injustice that tears peace apart is not overcome. Social justice cannot be achieved if the armed struggle does not seriously dent the exploitative interests of the ruling elite, backed up so often by the armed forces of the nation.

But social justice is a possibility under a President passionate about the poor. A Duterte government serious about social justice allies logically with revolutionaries and citizens and worshippers passionate for social justice – be they from the CPP-NPA-NDF, civil society, or from radical believers in a compassionate God; what must be changed is not the Constitution that mandates change, nor the religious belief that suports change, but the established elite powerfully protecting its self interest, supported and entrenched by a global elite; what must be changed is the large number of complacent Filipino citizens more worried about propriety than social justice. They are happier with leadership that is prim and proper than with leadership that curses the darkness and follows the inner light.

From: Unity in Social Justice by Fr. Joel Tabora, S.J. President of Ateneo de Davao University

Contribution to Pakighinabi, “When Blue Meets Red” on the on the GPH-NDFF Peace Process with Mr. Fidel Agcaoili representing NDFP, Finster Auditorium,

June 8, 2015

Full article here: https://taborasj.wordpress.com/…/08/unity-in-social-justice/