There is little to celebrate about a horrific typhoon that took the lives of nearly 650 Filipinos and ruined more than $200 million worth of crops. The storm, known as Bopha, has devastated the Philippines in a year already stricken with destructive monsoons.
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But at least the storm has convinced the island nation's communist rebels, the New People's Army, to suspend its strikes while damaged regions recover. As the Manila-based GMA outlet reports, the Maoists, whose struggle has left more than 40,000 dead, have offered a truce in the storm's wake.
This disaster won't reverse the rebels' ideological stance. Nor will it resolve the fundamental problems the fuel their decades-running insurgency.