Duterte to freed communist leaders: Surrender or face punitive action
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, in his message to the troops during his visit at Fort Magsaysay in Palayan City, Nueva Ecija on November 22, 2017, reiterates his vow to improve the welfare of the soldiers and their families. ACE MORANDANTE/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Turn yourselves in or face “punitive” action.
President Rodrigo Duterte issued this warning on Friday to communist leaders who were temporarily released as he vowed to wage war against leftist fighters following the collapse of peace talks that aimed to end nearly half-century long of insurgency.
“I am ordering those I have released temporarily to surrender or face again punitive action,” Duterte said in his speech the 67th anniversary of the first scout ranger regiment.
“You have to go back where you belong,” he added.
On Thursday, presidential spokesperson Harry Roque announced that Duterte had signed Proclamation 360 formally calling off peace talks that were restarted last year after being scuttled in 2013.
It was unclear if the proclamation also made good on Duterte's threat to categorize communist rebels as terrorists.
Duterte previously sent mixed signals on the peace negotiations with the Maoist guerillas.
He would express readiness to talk to the insurgents after declaring that peace negotiations with them are just a "waste of money."
In the same speech on Friday, Duterte, a self-styled socialist, said the “30 to 40” rebel leaders he freed last year in order to restart negotiations were not helpful at all as he threatened to go after them.
“Eh kung hindi makatulong then you are undercutting me before the eyes of the Filipino people, you must be joking,” the leader said.
“You must be joking because I will go after you and I do not really care whatever happens to you after,” he added.
“Why should I continue talking to them? And they’re always drumbeating about war. Go ahead. We have been fighting for 50 years—this insurgency of the communist.”
Jose Maria Sison, chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, accused Duterte of “sabotaging” the peace talks.
Sison said the panels had been working on common drafts for an agreement "after several months of hard work in unilateral and bilateral meetings" that would have been finalized in Oslo toward the end of November.
The common drafts discussed the amnesty and release of political prisoners, "coordinated unilateral ceasefires," agrarian reform and national industrialization under an envisioned Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms, he said.
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