National Peace Conference, Philippines

After many years of unrest in the Philippines, the overthrow of the Marcos regime by a "bloodless revolution" brought the hope of peace. A broadly based citizen's movement was mobilised and a participatory peace process was begun with the convening of the first National Peace Conference in October, 1990. The 1990 conference was a ground-breaking effort that served to forge a broad-based consensus among the representatives of seventeen sectors of Philippine society -- including the basic sectors, the academe, business, and the churches/faith groups -- on a national vision and agenda for peace. The NPC focused on the issues of social justice, the peace process, human rights, political governance, sovereignty, environment, socio-cultural transformation and moral renewal.

To strengthen its position in pushing the peace agenda, the NPC decided in May, 1993 to reconstitute itself with a more structured membership base under the leadership of a governing council with representatives elected from the different participating sectors. Today it is a non-partisan multi-sectoral citizen's assembly. The active core of the NPC membership includes organisations and coalitions coming from the basic sectors of: farmers, fisherfolk, urban poor, formal and informal labour, indigenous peoples, women, persons with disability, youth, and students.

The NPC sees its primary mission to be the pursuit of its Basic Peace Agenda. The Basic Peace Agenda is drawn from the deepest aspirations of the various sectors and formulated as government "doables" on the levels of immediate executive and legislative imperatives as well as of longer term policy directions. It undertakes direct advocacy of these agenda with government, while at the same time leading and sustaining the critical participation of the basic sectors in the 1993 Social Pact for Empowered Economic Development (SPEED) and the recently launched Social Reform Agenda (SRA).

The NPC supports peace talks between government and armed opposition groups. They also advocate active citizens' participation in the peace process, insisting that the people's peace agenda must be the focus of any viable and sustainable peace plan.