Military welcomes panel for peace talks, Sison rejects it
Credit to Author: The Manila Times| Date: Mon, 15 Apr 2019 10:46:15 +0000
AS the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Monday welcomed the proposed formation of a panel that would negotiate peace anew with communist rebels, their leader Jose Maria “Joma” Sison rejected it.
“The AFP welcomes all efforts of the government towards attainment of the peace we have always been longing for. Fifty years of deception, lies, exploitation of the IP (Indigenous Peoples) and extortion is enough,” Col. Noel Detoyato, military public affairs chief, said in a statement after President Rodrigo Duterte floated the idea.
Sison said the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), as well as the Filipino people, should remain “alert” with pronouncements made by the President, describing these as “militarist purposes.”
Detoyato said, however, that Sison should show “sanity and coherence” and “must also accept the fact that there are many roads towards peace but the road he has taken is not one of them.”
Detoyato stressed that the talks should be held in the Philippines since “the problem is here” and not in The Netherlands, where the negotiations had been held.
He also lashed out at the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) for being a “militarized office,” under the leadership of former military chief Carlito Galvez Jr.
“The NDFP does not want to be baited into accepting a war panel of the Duterte regime whose purpose is merely to seek the impossible, such as the surrender of the revolutionary forces, especially the New People’s Army (NPA),” Sison said in a separate statement. DEMPSEY REYES
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