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Joma Sison: NDFP negotiators' visit to Manila ‘impossible’ for now


National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) chief peace negotiator Fidel Agcaoili and NDFP senior adviser to the negotiating panel Luis Jalandoni will not be visiting Manila to talk peace with the government, according to Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria Sison.

"Duterte underestimates the revolutionary integrity, long experience and intelligence of the NDFP by presuming that Agcaoili and Jalandoni will walk into his trap and slaughterhouse in Manila," Sison said in a statement.

He underscored that a visit to Manila should not be expected unless Duterte removes the "despotic" measures that he implemented such as the Proclamation No. 360 which terminated peace negotiations, and Proclamation No. 374 which branded the CPP and its armed wing New People's Army (NPA) as "terrorist" organizations.

"GRP-NDFP peace negotiations and the Manila visit of Agcaoili and Jalandoni are impossible so long as Duterte is in power and does not remove the aforesaid obstacles that he himself is responsible for," Sison said.

He added that The Hague Joint Declaration, as well as other agreements, must first be reaffirmed.

"Otherwise the NDFP cannot do anything else but to further strengthen the Filipino people and the broad united front in their resolve and movement to oust the tyrannical, traitorous, brutal, corrupt and mendacious Duterte regime," Sison said.

On Thursday, Duterte said that the communist rebels insist on resuming peace talks.

“I don’t know but they are insisting on resuming the talks and ‘yung iba, I will not mention the name, they want to come home to talk. Sabi ko okay lang,” the President said in a speech.

He, afterward, said that Agcaoili and Jalandoni wanted to return to the Philippines.

The two, along with NDFP negotiating panel member Coni Ledesma, previously called off plans to visit Manila in November 2018 due to security concerns.

In 2017, Duterte terminated peace talks with the Reds through the Proclamation No. 360.

Last March, he said that the communist rebels should just probably 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. —LDF, GMA News

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