Duterte knows poker

I find it queer that on the heels of President (Rodrigo) Duterte's plan to release septuagenarian prisoners who are sick, political prisoners included, also suddenly emerged this clatter from leftist organizations demanding for the immediate release of their own. The clamor, while maybe valid, is sadly pregnant with the usual leftist bravado damning the Duterte administration for failing to act on the plight of political prisoners.

The sloganeering is misplaced and in fact ridiculous. In no such time and anyone's administration has government worked out strategies to address rebellions and separatist movements than now.

The moribund and discredited opposition brings into focus the plethoric issue of extra-judicial killings and I find it rather odd that leftist organizations and professional protest groups join them like one ensemble coming out of a jukebox.

One cannot distinguish now who are the paid hacks as the legitimacy of their causes are lost in mixture of anti-Duterte brew that is conjured by the opposition. I do not know whether the recent incendiary tones of NGOs that are identified with the CPP-NPA denouncing Duterte's alleged hedging in freeing political prisoners have the sanction of the leadership that is now negotiating peace with the government.

Do they belong to an entirely different sector who are out to scuttle the peace initiatives and progress that have so far been achieve in the Oslo talks? There are elements who cannot live in peace and there are pan-handling NGOs who see that final peace settlement will finally put an end to their funding assistance from donor foundations?

I raise the questions because I found it queer that on the heels of the declaration of President Duterte and his Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza saying they are prepared to release all political prisoners in the light of positive developments in peace negotiations between the government and the CPP/NPA NDF, these cacophony of derogatory issues are now raised by organizations identified with the left and the political opposition.

Strange bedfellows, one trying to demonize the Duterte administration for what VP Leni Robredo cavalierly and idiotically describes as government 'extra-judicial killing policy'; the other for reneging on its promise to release political prisoners.

Amidst the ongoing war against drugs those who opted to fight it out with the law will surely find their way to kingdom come. The rule in this one does not differ much from countries to countries which are waging their own struggles against drug syndicates. Ours is just intense because the past administration practically abetted the proliferation of illegal drug operations in the country which practically pushed us to the abyss of becoming a narco state. That our main penal institution-the New Bilibid Prison -- had become the central distribution point of shabu in the country tells us of horrible story. This is compounded by the fact that all these criminal syndications are happening in wanton abandon under the watch of the Department of Justice then.

The opposition should know by now that Duterte is made of sterner stuff and is not cowed by fiery speeches and propaganda. Even as the backbone of the drug syndicates had been broken, there will certainly be no letup in the campaign. There will be more casualties make no mistake about that.

On the other hand, Duterte, true to his words and what he had already demonstrated in concrete terms, will pursue the path to peace with CPP/NPA NDF and will continue with his agenda of freeing political prisoners. But do not play poker with him as he is wiser in many ways than what the political opposition and so-called human rights watch NGOs do in the game they play.

(Jun Ledesma is a community journalist who writes from Davao City comments from the perspective of a Mindanaoan)