Duterte still wants peace talks to solve insurgency problem

BACOLOD CITY, Philippines — Despite an appeal from his daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, to reconsider his decision, President Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte said his decision to revive the peace talks between the government and communist rebels still remains an option.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines reported an upsurge of communist rebel atrocities nationwide, even in Negros Island. “We have to deal with them. That is why I am talking to them,” Digong said in his speech Sunday in Talisay City, Negros Occidental.

While he is aware of the sentiments of some military and police personnel, the President said: “ I am not a uniformed personnel. I am a worker of government chosen by the people to lead.”

Mayor Sara was earlier quoted as saying that she trusted the wisdom of her father, but she believed that pursuing peace with communist rebels “is counterproductive and plainly useless.”

The President however told Negrenses: "I can’t have any option except to find peace for my country. You must understand that.”

PNP Chief Director General Oscar Albayalde, who accompanied Duterte at the housing groundbreaking rites in Talisay City, also expressed his concern in the series of ambush and encounter of his policemen with the New People’s Army.

"It should be addressed not only in terms of military and police operations; we also need to talk to them on how to solve the insurgency problem," Albayalde said.

Albayalde, who used to be assigned in Negros in 1989 as a trooper of the PNP Special Action Force, debunked allegations that the police is not responding to rebel violent activities.

While their resources are limited in the conduct of internal security operation, Albayalde said they are asking reinforcement from the AFP most of the time.

Senior Supt.  Rodolfo Castil, director of the Negros Occidental Police Provincial Office, also disclosed that the Police Regional Office-6 beefed the two companies of the Provincial Mobile Forces Companies, with additional 140 personnel, due to the upsurge of NPA atrocities in the province.

Suspected NPA rebels summarily executed two more civilians on Sunday in Moises Padilla town,on suspicions of their being military informants.

The NPA also claimed responsibility on several killings of suspected military informants in the past several weeks in Moises Padilla, Isabela and Himamaylan and Kabankalan cities, including the killing of two soldiers and wounding of eight others. (FREEMAN)