President Rodrigo Duterte (left) and Communist Party of the Philippines founding chair Jose Maria Sison. (File photo)
MANILA -- The national government's newly created peace panel is ready for the possible revival of talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines' (CPP) political wing, the National Democratic Front (NDF), President Rodrigo R. Duterte has announced.
Duterte's pronouncement came as he bared in an interview with ABS-CBN on Friday night that he has formed a new government peace panel that would hold negotiations with NDF consultants for the crafting of a binding peace pact between the two parties.
"For as long as there is (a) broad principle agreed upon, well, the new committee that I have created will take over," the President said.
"I have changed the composition. I'm doing away with the last membership."
He, however, did not mention the people who would serve as state peace negotiators.
The peace talks between the national government and the NDF have been intermittent since it started in 1986.
Duterte's relatively warm relationship with the communist guerillas during his first months in office has turned sour following the relentless attacks by the CPP's armed component, the New People's Army (NPA), against government troops and civilians despite ongoing peace negotiations.
On Nov. 23, 2017, Duterte inked Proclamation 360, formally terminating the peace talks with the NDF.
It was followed by the Dec. 5, 2017 signing of Proclamation 374, classifying the CPP and NPA as terror organizations because of the crimes they supposedly committed "against the Filipino people, against humanity, and the law of the nations."
The CPP-NPA has also been listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the Philippines.
On March 18, 2019, Duterte dissolved the national government’s negotiating peace panel led by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello, following the moribund talks with NDF leaders.
The President, however, announced on April 4, 2019, his plan to re-open talks with the communist movement by creating a military-led peace panel.
Also in December last year, Duterte said he was willing to revive the peace dialogue, on condition that he would first meet with CPP founding chair Jose Maria Sison in the Philippines.
Sison, who has been in self-exile in the Netherlands since 1987, earlier said he was willing to have a one-on-one meeting with Duterte in a "neutral" country "near the Philippines."
Duterte refused to heed Sison's request, and instead guaranteed that the communist founder would not face arrest upon return to the Philippines.
"I'm sorry but that's my condition. I guarantee his safety and if nothing happens in the talks, he can go back freely to where he came from. Nobody would stop him," he said. "And upon my oath, sinabi ko iyan (I said that) as the president and say maybe, negotiator.
But one-on-one muna ang negotiation (But let's first have a one-on-one negotiation)." (PNA)
