Palace shrugs off Joma Sison's warning of NPA killing 1 soldier a day

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang is unfazed by the threat of Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria "Joma" Sison that he would order the New People's Army to kill one soldier a day if the government does not resume the peace talks.

Roque said there is nothing new with the threat because the rebels have been killing government troopers even before the peace talks collapsed.

"You know that there is nothing new with the position of the NPA. We are talking peace and yet they continue to target soldiers. So what's new? There is nothing new there," the presidential spokesman said.

"Why would we yield to them? Does he think the armed forces cannot defeat them? He should watch out. The President does not want bloodshed but he (Sison) should not scare the government and act as if he controls the territory of the Philippines," he added.

READ: Palace says no basis for NPA to arrest gov't negotiators

Roque said the government has given free passes to the National Democratic Front consultants but the communist rebels continue to attack government troopers.

"So go ahead, make all the threats he want," he said.

Palace: Lumads to be consulted in plan to invite investors

In the same press briefing, Roque assured indigenous peoples groups or Lumads that they would be consulted in the government's plan to spur economic activity in their homeland.

He said foreign investors would not be allowed to enter the Lumads' ancestral domain if the local communities are against it.

"Of course the IPs (indigenous peoples) will be consulted, that's the provision of the law. They will have to decide if they will allow foreign investors in to begin with," Roque said, referring to the Indigenous Peoples Rights Act of 1997.

"They can refuse if they don't want," he added.

READ: Duterte will not expel Lumads from ancestral lands, says Palace

Last week, Duterte asked Lumads to prepare to relocate as he promised to look for investors who can spur economic activity in their ancestral lands.

Some indigenous peoples groups assailed the president's remark, accusing him of pushing the interests of foreign capitalists and disrespecting the Lumads' right to their ancestral lands.

Roque said Duterte is not forcing the Lumads to leave their ancestral domains.

"That is not the intention of the president. What he meant perhaps by reclamation is if their investors coming in. Physical relocation but it doesn’t mean that they will be expelled from their ancestral domains. Ancestral domains tend to be huge, they are not like limited to 100 square meters," he said.

Roque said the NPA guerrillas, not the government, are the ones violating the rights of Lumads.

"The president’s reaction to that is the ones violating the rights of the Lumads are the NPA because they are forcibly conscripting the Lumads into the NPA," he said.

"In fact, the statistics is something like 80 percent of them are already conscripted by the NPAs and they have no choice because they do it under… the barrel of a gun. That’s why the solution of the President is to create an economic opportunities in the Lumads area."