Joma Sison: Duterte needs peace talks more than Reds

President Rodrigo Duterte needs the peace talks more than the National Democratic Front, NDF chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said Tuesday.

Sison made the remark a day after Duterte again scrapped the peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), of which Sison is the chief political consultant.

"Duterte is mentally, politically and morally deranged. He needs the peace talks more than the revolutionary movement," Sison said on Facebook.

"He pretends not to know that his regime and the entire semi-colonial and semi-feudal ruling system are in rapidly worsening political and economic crisis because of the puppetry, brutality and corruption of his regime and the crisis of the world capitalist system, aggravated by the Covid-19," he added.

Duterte on Monday said there would be no more negotiations because, according to him, members of the New People's Army attacked soldiers on humanitarian missions amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sison said Duterte was "never been interested in serious peace negotiations with the NDFP."

"He has always tried in vain to use the talks as a way of seeking the surrender of the revolutionary movement to his anti-national and anti-democratic regime instead of addressing the roots of the armed conflict through comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms," Sison said. -Joahna Lei Casilao/NB, GMA News