Communist leader and peace consultant Jose Maria Sison downplayed President Rodrigo Duterte’s threat to kill him, saying that he is seeing it as an expression of affection.
In a statement posted on the National Democratic Front of the Philippines website (NDFP), Sison compared Duterte’s repeated threats to skits in American entertainment.
“Duterte has repeated so many times the threat to kill me that sometimes I surmise that the expression ¨kill¨ has actually become a term of endearment, as in some American comedies,” Sison said.
Likewise, Sison, the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, said he refuses to reply to Duterte “in any hostile manner.”
That is, if Duterte does not “actually wreck the work already done by the negotiating panels to prepare the resumption of formal peace talks,” Sison clarified.
Sison expressed confidence that Duterte, in using “strong” words, was “eager to resume the peace negotiations rather than to block them.”
“It is best that Duterte and I allow and encourage the GRP (Government of the Republic of the Philippines) and NDFP negotiating panels to continue preparing for the resumption of formal talks and make substantial progress as soon as possible,” Sison stressed.
“I have reason to be optimistic on the basis of the hard and productive work that the panels have already done in the form of back channel consultations, consensus building and bilateral drafting, unless the Duterte regime is once more backtracking,” the communist leader said. /vvp