Palace wants peace talks with Reds held in Philippines

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine government wants to hold the next round of peace talks in the country instead of abroad, the Palace reiterated on Monday.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that there is no need to go abroad to talk peace with fellow Filipinos, adding that President Rodrigo Duterte has already guaranteed the safety of rebel negotiators and consultants.

"But the president has emphasized that this is a talk between Filipinos, should be held in the Philippines," Roque said in a press briefing at the Palace.

He also stressed that the chief executive is serious about forging a deal that would end the communist insurgency in the country. The Communist Party of the Philippines and New People's Army have been waging what they call a people's war since 1969.

He pointed out that Duterte has ordered the Department of Justice to file the necessary motions in court to grant individuals who would participate in the talks temporary liberty as evidence of his sincerity.

Roque said Duterte himself guaranteed the safety and security of Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Maria Sison should he decide to return to the country and participate in the process.

The same Department of Justice also has a petition before a Manila court to officially declare hundreds of suspected communists as terrrorists under the Human Security Act. 

The presidential spokesperson added that Duterte himself offered to shoulder all of Sison's expenses while in the Philippines.

Should the Philippines become the next venue of the talks, there will be no need for a third-party facilitator anymore although help from other countries will be welcomed, Roque said.

Separate peace negotiations with the Moro National Liberation Front and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front were held abroad and were done with foreign facilitators. The peace process with the Cordillera People's Liberation Army, which led to the 1992 Mount Data ceasefire accord and a Memorandum of Agreement in 2011, was done locally.

Duterte postpones peace talks resumption

Last week, Duterte ordered the postponement of the peace talks between the government and communist rebels originally set for the end of this month.

The government said that this was needed to allow a more thorough engagement with the public on the issue. No definite date yet has been given when the talks can resume, but the president said last week that the deferment might be until July.

Sison slammed the cancelation and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines released a draft of the stand-down agreement between the two parties over the weekend.

Roque however refused to comment on the document Sison released, saying that as far as he is concerned, no agreement was signed. 

A digital copy of the supposed agreement that the NDFP released to media has the signatures of Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, who is also chair of the government peace panel, and other members of the panel.

Roque said that the president is also in the process of reviewing the documents his negotiators signed, if any.

"He also has to determine if some of the provisions entered into by them – although I am not conceding that they have in fact entered into any specific provisions as of now, ‘no – are pursuant to the authority granted to them by the president," he said.

Military not behind postponement

Roque also denied that the military prevailed upon the government to defer the peace talks with the rebels.

"I can tell you unequivocally that that was not the case. It was the president alone who wanted to review certain matters in connection with the peace talks," according to the presidential spokesperson.

The government and the rebels are engaged in sporadic negotiations to end one of the world's longest-running armed rebellions.

Both sides have blamed each other for the failure of previous talks.