Palace: EO on localized peace talks ‘forthcoming’

President Rodrigo Duterte will soon issue the executive order for the planned localized peace talks with communist rebels, his spokesperson said on Tuesday.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said Duterte approved during the 28th Cabinet meeting on Monday the draft of the EO which provides the framework that will aid local government officials in their engagement with the rebels.

"It was approved in the Cabinet meeting, so it is forthcoming," Roque told reporters.

The guidelines as previously announced by the Palace are as follows:

• Nationally orchestrated, centrally directed, and locally supervised and implemented
• Constitutional integrity and sovereignty will not be compromised.
• Complete and genuine resolution of the local armed conflict that shall cover the New People's Army, organs of political power and Militia ng Bayan
• If there is a ceasefire, the constitutional mandate of the State to protect public safety, civilian welfare, critical infrastructure and private properties and the guarantee of rule of law and order will not be compromised at all times.
• Government goodwill, full amnesty package based on disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation and reintegration to the mainstream society.
• Substantive agenda will be based on the Medium Term Philippine Development Plan and Philippine Development Program 2040.

The sixth guideline states that the necessary enabling environment set by the President for the formal local talks to proceed should have the following: local venue, no coalition government or power-sharing, no revolutionary taxes, extortion, arson and violent activities and the fighters to remain in their pre-designated encampment areas.

Aside from localized peace talks, the government is also pushing for community dialogue, local peace package, and confidential dialogue.

The local peace package, according to Roque, is intended to provide integration and mainstreaming support without going through the process of peace negotiation while the confidential dialogue involves talking to a "combatant armed group who desires to lie low without open documentation and will not avail of the peace package program."

The Communist Party of the Philippines said on July 13 that it would not participate in the localized talks, calling it a "sham and a waste of people's money." — Virgil Lopez/RSJ, GMA News