Joma Sison on 'termination' of peace talks: Duterte is like an old broken record

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Joma Sison on Thursday said he found nothing new in President Rodrigo Duterte's latest pronouncement on the termination of the government's peace talks with his group.

"Duterte is like an old broken record repeating ad nauseam his termination of the GRP-NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines) peace negotiations," Sison said in a statement.

"As far as the NDFP is concerned, Duterte formally killed the peace negotiations on November 23, 2017 with his Proclamation 360 terminating them," he added.

Duterte on Thursday said that he is ending the peace negotiations and told the Reds that they can just talk to the next administration.

"I would like to announce that I am no longer entertaining any interventions or maybe persuasions in this democratic state of the Republic of the Philippines. My sense is that you can maybe talk to the next president of this republic one day," Duterte said, three days after he terminated the appointment of the five-member government negotiating panel.

Sison said the President is just "merely driving more nails into the coffin of the peace negotiations under his regime" to allegedly perpetuate the armed struggle that he uses as an excuse to impose a de facto martial law nationwide.

Sison believes there is hope in resuming peace talks once another President replaces Duterte.

"The GRP-NDFP peace negotiations can be resurrected in the future by a new GRP administration. The Duterte regime is not eternal, it can be finished with the success of the oust movement, with the end of his term in 2022 or with his certain overthrow as he forces his way to a fascist dictatorship," he said.

Further, Sison branded the Duterte administration's localized peace talks as fake and controlled by the military in order to launch a psy-war, intimidation, and harassmants.

"In these fake negotiations, people are gathered by local officials and misrepresented as surrenderers and the military officers collect the reward money for the fake surrenderers," he said.

The revolutionary forces will continue to advance their resistance in the meantime, he added. — BAP, GMA News