Lorenzana: Just you wait, Mr. Sison

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Tuesday said the military would mobilize all its resources to fight communist rebels after the campaign against the Islamic State-allied terrorists in Marawi City.

Lorenzana spoke to reporters a day after President Duterte announced in his State of the Nation Address (Sona) that he had scuttled talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) for making unreasonable demands while continuing attacks against government forces and civilians.

“The President was saying that after Marawi, we will train our eyes on the NPA (New People’s Army) next. That is a natural consequence after we brought some of the battalions to Marawi and even Jolo for the Abu Sayyaf,” Lorenzana said.

Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists rampaged in the Lanao del Sur province capital on May 23, prompting the President to declare martial law in Mindanao—a measure that was extended through the end of the year by overwhelming vote on Saturday during a joint session of Congress.

‘No stop to extortion’

Lorenzana said even with an ongoing peace negotiations, the communist rebels “have not stopped extorting from the countryside, they have not stopped recruiting.”

In an address before a meeting of the Management Association of the Philippines (MAP) on Tuesday, Lorenzana said NPA guerrillas in Eastern Mindanao collected as much as P1.2 billion a year from extortion activities alone.

Jose Maria Sison, the CPP founder living in exile in The Netherlands, “wants to fight and talk” at the same time, Lorenzana said.

The defense secretary emphasized the importance of having a bilateral ceasefire while negotiations were ongoing.

But he said the CPP wanted a ceasefire only after all their demands had been met so that by then “they would claim ownership” of all that had been agreed upon in the negotiations.

Lorenzana admitted that he had discouraged the President from pursuing talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) without a bilateral ceasefire.

“It is not a very unreasonable request because we do not want distraction in the field. What the NDFP wants is, they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to talk while extorting money from the countryside,” he said. —With a report from Christine O. Avendaño