Category: news reports

“There is hard work ahead for negotiators and consultants … for the peace negotiations to move forward,”

Holding peace negotiations in neutral territory is standard practice among peace processes in history

Sison said the planned meeting between him and the President, as reported by Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III, is not a remote possibility but may not happen in the Philippines

“The NDFP cannot trust any ‘no arrest’ declaration from the (government) side unless the repressive issuances and campaigns of Duterte are ended, the political prisoners are amnestied and released, the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER) and a bilateral ceasefire are already in place,”

“I think there needs to be several steps before we could reach a point of having peace negotiations in the Philippines,”

In this exclusive interview, Sison said that despite all that the Government of the Republic of the Philippines did to the negotiations, he said he hopes Duterte may soon be “enlightened”.

“Now, Duterte looks like a fool, pasinto-sinto, by firing her after only two weeks,”

“Since the beginning, he has been afraid that she would discover from local officials and US intelligence how he actually protects the biggest drug lords under his mafia syndicate or crime family,” Sison said.

The underemployment figure is usually far higher than the unemployment figure and is always used to conceal full unemployment

The Philippine labor force is 44 million. If 10 million lost their jobs, that is a whopping 23 per cent of the labor force added to the ranks of the unemployed