Duterte on ending peace talks with Reds: It’s a stalemate

President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday defended his decision to permanently end the peace negotiations with the communists who have been waging a rebellion in the last five decades.

Duterte advised the rebels last week to just talk to the next president after he announced the termination of the talks and dissolved the government negotiating panel led by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III.

“Bakit ayaw ko na makipag-usap? Fifty three years in the making, wala talaga, we were never able to make a dent. Little success eh. Ganun pa rin. It's a stalemate,” the President said in a speech at the PDP-Laban campaign rally in Cagayan de Oro City.

Following the President’s announcement last Thursday, Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Maria Sison said Duterte sounded like an “old broken record” as the latter formally “killed” the peace negotiations on November 23, 2017 through Proclamation 360.

Sison said Duterte was 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.

With the termination of the talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the CPP’s political arm, and the dissolution of the government negotiating panel, the Duterte administration shifts its strategy to localized peace talks.

NDFP consultants can also be arrested any time as the safe conduct passes were issued to them as goodwill gesture while peace negotiations were taking place, according to Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Carlito Galvez Jr.

"The administration still seeks peace. We are just trying a different tact by localizing the peace talks as the concerns of rebel groups vary from one locality to another specially so that Mr. Sison appears not to have control over the communist forces on the ground," presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said on Saturday.

Panelo said that while the peace negotiations can still be resurrected by a new administration, the communist rebels must first demonstrate genuine sincerity in the peace process by laying down their arms and shun acts of violence including murder, rape, extortion, and destruction of public infrastructure and private properties.

"Until such demonstration of sincerity, the localized peace talks shall be given impetus," he said.

Duterte earlier issued Executive Order 70 which provides for a whole-of-nation approach to addressing the root causes of insurgencies, disturbances and tensions such as poverty, historical injustice, social inequality and lack of inclusivity.

It also ordered the creation of a national task force to address the communist insurgency. — RSJ, GMA News