President Rodrigo Duterte may have gotten the wrong impression that top personalities of the National Democratic Front (NDF) are willing to negotiate under the current administration, according to Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison.
Jose Maria “Joma” Sison
Sison, in a statement on late Thursday, shot down Duterte’s remarks that Luis Jalandoni and Fidel Agcaoili were “insisting” on returning peace talks back to the table.
Jalandoni is the current NDF Negotiating Panel chairman, while Agcaoili is the NDF’s senior adviser.
The CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, are members of the NDF, an umbrella group
“[The] peace negotiations and the Manila visit of Agcaoili and Jalandoni are impossible so long as Duterte is in power and does not remove… obstacles that he himself is responsible for,” the self-exiled communist leader said.
The obstacles being referred to by Sison are the issuance of Proclamation 360 on Nov. 23, 2017, which officially terminated the peace negotiations; and days after that, Proclamation 374, which tagged the CPP and the NPA as terrorist organizations.
Sison also cited Executive Order 70, signed by Duterte on Dec. 4, 2018, which created a task force led by law enforcement agencies that would end insurgency in the country.
“It is Duterte who is clearly culpable for the termination of the peace negotiations in contempt of the people’s desire for these,” the communist leader said, adding that the President was “completely wrong in presuming and implying” that the NDF would again be willing to conduct peace talks with the government.
“Indeed, peace negotiations are a mode of talking to the enemy, addressing the roots of the armed conflict and possibly ending the long-running civil war in the Philippines,” Sison said.
https://www.manilatimes.net/peace-talks-with-duterte-impossible-says-joma/597769/
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