DAVAO CITY?The Aquino administration will expand its efforts to end the communist insurgency but it will not be negotiating only with ranking officers of the National Democratic Front (NDF), the rebels? political arm, according to a government official.

Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin said peace efforts would now include negotiations at the local level, particularly with field commanders, in a statement he issued during a visit here last Thursday.

Earlier, Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, said they were ready to discuss resuming the peace talks that collapsed in 2001.

But while the government was open to the resumption of talks, military operations against the New People?s Army (NPA), the CPP?s armed group, would continue.

Gazmin said the military was implementing both combat and civic operations in the communities believed influenced by the rebels, so the people could feel the presence of the government.

?The government is instituting reforms geared toward making an impact on the lives of the people. The people in the countryside will cooperate if the military will be able to show the right direction,? Gazmin said.

Brig. Gen. Jessie Dellosa, the new commanding general of the 2nd Infantry Division in southern Tagalog, has meanwhile given orders to continue counterinsurgency operations in the wake of an Army report on the rebels? dwindling numbers.

Lt. Col. Noel Detoyato, commander of the 16th Infantry Brigade in Rizal, said NPA recruitment had shown a significant drop since the start of the government campaign to crush the insurgency in 2001, noting that their numbers had dwindled from 2,500 to ?just around 200.? Jeffrey M. Tupas, Inquirer Mindanao, and Maricar Cinco, Inquirer Southern Luzon