Drilon backs Duterte stand to hold talks in PH

Senator Franklin Drilon
EDWIN BACASMAS/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Saturday said he supported President Rodrigo Duterte’s stand to hold peace talks with communist rebels in the Philippines.

Jose Maria Sison, founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines, said moving the talks brokered by the Norwegian government to the country would violate a 1995 agreement on security and immunity guarantees forged during the administration of former President Fidel Ramos to negotiate in a neutral country.

The President on Thursday canceled the scheduled June 28 resumption of formal talks in Oslo, Norway, which negotiators from the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) had agreed upon.

He said the talks would be held in the Philippines in July but did not set a date.

The two sides also were supposed to implement a stand-down agreement, or a preliminary truce, between government forces and the New People’s Army (NPA) on June 21.

“The peace talks have always been held in an international ground but it did not seem to accelerate discussion. Let the real peace talks begin in a local arena. No third party this time,” Drilon said in a statement.

Gov’t sincerity

Holding the talks in the country would show the government’s sincerity in ending the nearly half-century-old communist insurgency and agreeing to that meant the rebels recognized the government’s legitimacy, Drilon said.

“Go to the Philippines and let’s talk peace,” he told the rebels.

Drilon had served as an adviser to the government’s peace panel under Ramos.

Despite his frustration, resentment and harsh words for the President over the cancellation of the formal negotiations, Sison said the talks could still be salvaged but insisted they be held in another country.

“There is still hope for the peace negotiations to push through if only the postponement of one or two months is true,” Sison said in an online interview from Utrecht, the Netherlands, where he has lived in exile since 1986.

Sison serves as the NDFP’s chief political consultant in the talks.

Presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza said the scheduled talks had to be canceled to give time for public consultations concerning the peace process.

People’s war

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Saturday slammed Sison for threatening to continue the armed struggle after the President canceled the talks.

“Instead of rationally talking with our panel to discuss how to move forward (in) the resumption of the peace talks, he goes into a tantrum and orders the NPA to wage a people’s war,” Lorenzana said.

“Your so-called army no longer listens to you. They are sick and tired of your lies and rhetoric,” he added. —WITH REPORTS FROM JEANNETTE I. ANDRADE AND DELFIN T. MALLARI