MANILA, Philippines — Presidential peace adviser Avelino Razon Sunday said that President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's standing order to crush the communist insurgency by 2010 did not run counter to the scheduled resumption of formal peace talks with the rebels next month.

"There's no conflict there," he told the Inquirer. "We're going after the NPA, which is advocating the use of arms against the government."

The New People's Army is the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which has been waging a Marxist rebellion for four decades now.

Its political wing, the National Democratic Front, is set to resume formal talks with the government in August after both parties agreed to relax previous preconditions.

The government has agreed to lift the suspension of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), which would allow rebel leaders to freely move around and participate in the negotiations.

Razon pointed out that both the CPP and NDF were "legal" organizations.

"That's why we are encouraging their members to participate in the parliamentary struggle, not in the armed struggle," he said.

Anthony Golez, deputy presidential spokesperson, expressed high hopes for the coming resumption of formal peace talks.

"The moment that groups in conflict sit down and talk, that will be the first step toward peace and we are hopeful that the problem will be resolved," he said in an interview over government-run Radyo ng Bayan.

From 2006 to 2008, Ms Arroyo gave marching orders to both the police and the military to crush communist rebels, along with Moro secessionists and terrorists.

In 2006, she vowed to "break the back" of the communist insurgency by the time she stepped down in 2010.

"For the rest of my term, I hope I would be able to break the back of the insurgency and that we can have peace and stability," she said in an interview in China.