LUCENA CITY — The communist insurgents are now rethinking their stand on being open to peace talks with the government.
“In view of the murder of NDFP consultant Randy Malayao, the NDFP and all revolutionary forces within its fold are now in the process of reconsidering its policy of being open to peace negotiations with the GRP (government) under the Duterte regime,” Jose Maria Sison, exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder, said in a statement from Utrecht in the Netherlands Wednesday.
He said the Maoist-inspired New People’s Army (NPA) rebels and allied forces were “more than ever determined to carry out the overthrow of the treasonous, tyrannical, murderous and corrupt Duterte regime.”
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Earlier, Sison declared that the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the umbrella group of all communist-led organizations that has been conducting an on and off peace talks with the government since 1987, was still open to the possible resumption of the peace talks with the Duterte administration despite the president’s repeated rejection.
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In his latest statement, Sison said: “Malayao was not yet murdered by the armed minions of the Duterte regime when I reiterated the policy of the NDFP of being open to peace negotiation even with the regime.”
“The heinous murder manifests the scheme of the Duterte regime to shun peace negotiations in the first place, escalate its attacks on the people and their leaders and use its all out war on the revolutionary forces and people as the very excuse for imposing a fascist dictatorship on the people,” he added.
The communist leader also said that the murder of Randy Malayao and other criminal offenses of the Duterte regime “will result in the intensification of revolutionary armed struggle.”
“The blood of martyrs is never shed in vain. It inspires the greater resistance of the people to tyranny,” he reiterated. /ee