Sison to Duterte: Don’t use NPA to justify ML extension

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison and President Rodrigo Duterte. FILE PHOTOS

Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison struck back at the government on Thursday, saying President Duterte was “obsessed” with martial law and mass murder as ways of solving the country’s problems.

“It is obvious that he is using the NPA (New People’s Army) as a scapegoat like what (the late President Ferdinand) Marcos had done to make martial law Mindanao-wide and then nationwide,” Sison told the Inquirer in an interview.

The resumption of stalled peace negotiations between the government and the communist rebels has become uncertain after Mr. Duterte canceled back-channel efforts aimed at reviving the talks after four members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) were wounded in an encounter with NPA rebels in Arakan, North Cotabato province, on Wednesday morning.

Solicitor General Jose Calida also ordered government lawyers to invalidate the temporary liberty granted by various courts to the consultants of the rebel peace negotiators.

The NPA also attacked twice in Palawan province this week, killing two Marines and wounding another soldier.

The rebels, however, lost a fighter in a clash with government forces in Camarines Sur province on Wednesday.

Mr. Duterte approved back-channel negotiations the night before the Arakan encounter.

Broken promise

Sison said Mr. Duterte broke  “his promise to ally himself with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) for national independence, democracy, land reform, national industrialization and independent foreign policy.”

But Sison declined to discuss whether the NDFP would pursue an alliance with Mr. Duterte.

“I don’t want to run ahead of the apparent loss of interest in alliance by Duterte. I also prefer to take up current issues instead of leaping back to questions regarding his sincerity as ally or self-description as socialist,” Sison said.

The government’s back-channel team was to have been led by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, Mr. Duterte’s chief peace negotiator.

The Inquirer learned that the NDFP panel, including Sison, would have been the same team for the informal negotiations, assisted by select political and legal consultants.

Sison said that if the government wanted to end the peace negotiations, the communist rebels would have no choice but to fight back.

“If the government no longer wants peace talks, the NDFP cannot do anything but fight back. We cannot just keep quiet or be terrified,” he said.

‘Obsessed’ with martial law

Sison said there would be no need for peace talks “if the Duterte regime is not obsessed with martial rule and mass murder as the way to solve social, economic and political problems and to frighten in vain the revolutionary forces and the people to surrender and give up their revolutionary struggle for national and social liberation.”

“Maybe the government wants a test of strength first before going back to the negotiation table. It seems the United States and Duterte believe that their strength is overwhelming with martial rule,” he said.

“They never learned from their experience with Marcos and the continued growth in the revolutionary strength of the Filipino people and the Bangsamoro,” he added.

Sison said Marcos failed to crush the NPA and the Moro secessionist forces “when these were much smaller and he was much stronger” than Mr. Duterte militarily.

Now, he said, the NPA and the Bangsamoro forces are stronger than they were in 1972 and more resourceful and skillful in fighting.

“Duterte would be too stupid and too brutal to try to kill thousands of communist and other revolutionaries in a matter of months,” Sison said. —WITH REPORTS FROM MARLON RAMOS, REDEMPTO D. ANDA AND MA. APRIL MIER