PNP ready to protect Sison if he decides to return to PH

The Philippine National Police (PNP) is ready to protect Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison if he decides to return to the Philippines in August, police chief Dir. Gen. Oscar D. Albayalde said Wednesday.

“If he needs protection and security, then we will give them protection and security,” Albayalde said in a press conference at Camp Crame in Quezon City.

He added that the government is encouraging the CPP leader to go home so the peace negotiations will push through.

The National Democratic Front (NDF) on Tuesday said Sison was supposed to go home in the second week of August, months earlier than his scheduled homecoming in December.

The verbal agreement was part of the deals forged during the backchannel talks between the NDF and the Philippine government in early June.

But it is still uncertain if Sison’s homecoming would push because President Rodrigo Duterte postponed anew the formal round of talks last week.

Nonetheless, Albayalde said the PNP would be ready to honor the safe conduct pass given to the CPP leader if he returns to the Philippines.

Sison has been in exile in the Netherlands since 1987 after the collapse of the peace negotiations between the communist rebels and administration of former President Corazon Aquino. /ee

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