In a plan to resume peace talks, Maracanan called on Sunday the Communist Party's Armed Forces New People's Army (NPA) to implement a ceasefire agreement with government forces.
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said President Rodrigo Duterte has decided to ignore the recent attacks waged by the NPA rebels despite the implementation of holiday truce for the sake of the planned resumption of talks between the state peace negotiators and members of the CPP’s political arm, the National Democratic Front (NDF).
“Whatever the reason is, the President gave them another chance so they should avoid the repeat of attacks against government forces,” Panelo said in an interview with dzIQ.
“The President is letting that pass. There’s still a plan to resume the peace talks,” he added.
The holiday ceasefire between the state forces and the NPA insurgents took effect on Dec. 23 and will expire at 11:59 p.m. of Jan. 7, 2020.
While the truce was implemented ahead of the planned resumption of formal peace talks, there have been reported attacks by suspected NPA members against military and police personnel in Labo, Camarines Norte; Tubungan, Iloilo; and Quezon province on the first day of the implementation of the temporary ceasefire.
A soldier was killed and six others were wounded in the attack in Camarines Norte; two cops were wounded in Iloilo; while no government troops were hurt in Quezon, Armed Forces of the Philippines spokesperson, Marine Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo earlier reported.
Duterte has decided to hold a one-on-one meeting with CPP founder Jose Maria Sison in the Philippines following the series of attacks launched by NPA members during the holiday truce.
Sison, Duterte’s former professor, has been in self-exile in The Netherlands since 1987.
Panelo said the Chief Executive is still eager to meet Sison before the formal revival of talks.
“What the President wants is they hold a one-on-one meeting here in the Philippines. If he rejects the President’s call, that means he’s afraid and not sincere,” he said.
On Friday, Panelo said Duterte will not heed the preconditions set by Sison for the possible resumption of peace negotiations.
Sison, in a message for the CPP’s 51st founding anniversary, said the planned revival of talks can only be realized “by reaffirming the mutual agreements since the Hague Joint Declaration of 1992, by superseding the presidential issuances that previously terminated and prevented peace negotiations, and by laying the ground for the Interim Peace Agreement.”
The CPP leader also stressed that the interim peace deal should be a package of agreements, which include the “general amnesty and release of all political prisoners; the approval of articles of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms, particularly those on agrarian reform and rural development and national industrialization and economic development; and coordinated unilateral ceasefires.
On Dec. 3, Duterte said he would give the peace talks another chance, despite the issuance of Proclamation 360 on Nov. 23, 2017, which formally terminated the peace dialogue between the national government’s peace negotiators and NDF consultants.
The CPP-NPA is tagged as a terror group by the Philippines, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Source: PNA
