(UPDATED) President Rodrigo Duterte assures the communist rebels that they will not be arrested
AFP ANNIVERSARY. President Rodrigo Duterte leads the celebration of the Philippine military's 81st anniversary. Rappler photo
President Rodrigo Duterte, in a televised speech at the military headquarters, invited fighters of the communist New People's Army (NPA) to come down from their camps in the mountains and visit their families on Christmas Day.
"Leave your arms where they are and you can come down sa siyudad (to the cities), wherever you live. You visit your family," Duterte said in an extemporaneous speech during the celebration of the 81st anniversary of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Wednesday, December 21.
"Nakakatamad makipag-away ng Pasko (It's tiring to be fighting on Christmas)," he added.
Duterte assured the NPA combatants they would not be arrested.
"I guarantee you na walang aresto (no arrests), walang (no) oppression. Kung magsalubong kayo ng sundalo ng Pilipinas – sundalo ko – magkamay lang kayo (If you meet a Filipino soldier – my soldier – shake each other's hands). O kapag ayaw mo, huwag mo na lang tignan (If you don't want to do that, just don't look at them)," said the President.
AFP officials including chief of staff General Eduardo Año clapped as Duterte made these remarks.
The military is also preparing a new counter-insurgency campaign plan that will take into account peace talks with the communist rebels. (READ: Oplan Bayanihan ends as Duterte orders AFP to support NDF peace talks)
Duterte said to the military: "I also commend you for implementing a new campaign plan which is attuned with our government long-term vision of peace described in the AmBisyon Natin 2040."
Details of the new campaign plan were expected to be announced during the anniversary celebration but Colonel Edgard Arevalo, chief of the AFP public affairs office, said it would be presented at another time.
Duterte and Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison had spoken on the phone on Monday night, December 19, to advance the peace talks. Their conversation came amid an impasse caused by delays in the release of political prisoners and in the signing of the joint bilateral ceasefire.
The 3rd round of talks will be held in Italy in January.
Formal talks resumed last August, resulting in the declaration of separate unilateral ceasefires by the AFP and the NPA.
Complaints against each other's activities have raised fears that the ceasefires could be broken.
But on Tuesday, December 20, Sison said in a Facebook post that the NPA fighters would not break their ceasefire over the holidays.
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