It’s unclear if the emerging differences between Duterte, who was sworn in on June 30, and the insurgents could affect a resumption of peace talks from August 20 to 27 in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.
Advertisement
President Rodrigo Duterte says he wants peace talks with the Left to push through. “Lest counter-insurgency programs like Oplan Bayanihan are junked, any unilateral ceasefire declaration of the Philippine government is empty and defective”.
“Are you ready to declare a ceasefire or not?”
The CPP has long expressed willingness to engage in a ceasefire as long as there are peace negotiations, the statement added.
The rebels killed a militiaman and wounded four in an ambush on Wednesday, the army said.
The communists also said the Duterte ceasefire had no effect. “I will wait for the declaration at 5 p.m. [Saturday]”.
THE killing of a government militiaman by communists who failed to declare its own truce by Saturday has led the Philippine president to withdraw a cease-fire order that was issued earlier this week.
In the wake of his order to lift the unilateral ceasefire, Duterte also ordered ” all security forces to be on heightened alert” and resumed their mandate ” to neutralize all threats to national security”. “And no doubt, he will still continue to do so at any given opportunity”.
Given this, Dureza assured that he would make his corresponding recommendations to the President and the whole cabinet in the cabinet meeting.
“It was quite disconcerting that the GRP would impose such an inflexible ultimatum on the CPP”.
In a statement, the CPP basically said it was “too bad” Duterte took back his ceasefire, which the rebels had welcomed “as a measure to promote” the negotiations. “We are going nowhere and it is getting bloodier by the day”, he said, declaring a unilateral ceasefire and inviting the rebels to do the same.
“The CPP will reciprocate the President’s ceasefire declaration”, Agcaoili said.
By 5 o’clock in the afternoon of July 30, the final deadline the President announced lapsed and still there was no declaration from the NDF.
It said that the Army in North Cotabato “identified 13 barrios in Kidapawan City to be placed under Peace and Development Outreach Program (PDOP) to purge them of “communist-influence” while its troops are now in clearing operations in Magpet town”. “In Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur, troops of the 2 Scout Rangers Battalion conducted combat operations on July 29”.
“The government has shown its sincerity and we expect no less from the other party”, he added.
“We can fine-tune the ceasefire arrangement there because when you come up with bilateral arrangements will be discussed across the table during that particular time”, Dureza explained.
He called on both government (GPH) and the NDF “to thresh things out on the Davao del Norte incident and the ceasefire issues in the scheduled talks”.
Advertisement
“The NPA-SMROC urges the current GPH Commander-In-Chief to subject its own troops to a scrutiny of its own operations, deployment, and conduct nationwide to enable the aforesaid unilateral ceasefire order to become effective”.
