MANILA, Philippines - An inclusive rather than a coalition government is what President Duterte prefers, and inclusive means those from rebel groups as well.
In his speech during the change of command of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Friday, the President bared that he spoke to several people from rebel groups, including Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison and Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) founder Nur Misuari, even before he took his oath as the country’s 16th president.
“If (I) can talk to Sison and bring about, not a coalition government, but an inclusive government, they are there already,” Duterte said, referring to leftist appointees to his Cabinet like Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo and Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano.
Duterte said he is just waiting for Sison’s arrival in the country to begin peace talks.
But the President noted that military and police powers would not be given to the CPP.
Duterte is also set to meet the leaders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the MNLF in Jolo this week, offering them safe conduct passes.
Duterte said he has received a “favorable response from the outside,” apparently referring to the camps of the MILF’s Al Hajj Murad Ebrahim and Ghazali Jaafar.
“My job is to bring peace. My job is to talk to the enemies of the state, to the Communist Party of the Philippines, to the MILF, and to the men, and see if I could make a difference in our lives,” he said.
The President has excluded the Abu Sayyaf among the rebel groups he intends to talk to because the Abu Sayyaf, he said, is claiming historical rights and more privileges in Mindanao.
“A lot of the historical planners never really took into consideration that there was this oppression by a series of government that is not theirs. And they think that until now, we’re trying to repress them. And I said to them: You know you cannot drive us away anymore,” Duterte said, noting that a number of Filipinos, like him, are related by blood to the Muslim people.
“But, in reality, we can only take so much. I am not warning Abu Sayyaf, but I said there will always be a time for reckoning,” he added.
Newly designated AFP chief Gen. Ricardo Visaya also promised that the AFP under his leadership would launch a final push against internal security threats in line with the Presdient’s plan to refocus military efforts to addressing internal security conflicts.
“We will be unrelenting in our focused military operations against the terrorist groups like the Abu Sayyaf Group and all its allied terrorist cells,” Visaya said in his assumption speech.
Visaya also said under his leadership, the military would be realigning its resources to the locations and sanctuaries of the bandits in order to finish them off. – Giovanni Nilles, Jaime Laude