Category: News

Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency has been nothing short of controversial. Ever since he was elected as the 16th President of the Philippines two years ago, he has drawn criticism from activists and leaders the world over. Most recently, Duterte was condemned for forcibly kissing an overseas Filipina worker on the lips during a live event.

“It’s not negotiable,” he told reporters. “No way peace talks held in the Philippines can be protected and spared from sabotage by spoilers and enemies of a genuine peace process.”

Exiled communist leader Jose Maria “Joma” Sison opposed a proposal to seek a review by Congress of draft agreements between rebels and the government as a condition for formal talks to start, saying this was one of President Rodrigo Duterte’s tactics to sabotage the talks.

Tonight on #TheChiefs, CPP Founder Jose Maria Sison, National Democratic Front Peace Panel Chairman Fidel Agcaoili and Philippine Peace Center Executive Director Rey Casambre face Ed Lingao and Amy Pamintuan to talk about the pending peace talks between the CPP-NPA-NDF and the government.

The group said a GRP team led by panel member Hernani Braganza travelled to Utrect, The Netherlands on June 18 to 20 to personally explain GRP’s cancellation of the June 28 resumption of formal negotiations.

The government conveyed its decision to suspend all backchannel talks with the NDF pending the three-month review of all signed agreements. But the two parties can communicate if necessary.

Exiled communist leader Jose Maria “Joma” Sison opposed a proposal to seek a review by Congress of draft agreements between rebels and the government as a condition for formal talks to start, saying this was one of President Rodrigo Duterte’s tactics to sabotage the talks.

Formal resumption of negotiations between the government and the NDF was supposed to take place on June 28 in Oslo, Norway, but Duterte called it off last week to give way to public consultations.

Reacting to presidential spokesperson Harry Roque’s announcement Monday Duterte no longer wants a third party facilitator in the peace talks between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and the NDFP, Sison said the president is “willfuly and maliciously killing the peace negotiations by breaking the standing GRP-NDFP agreement on foreign neutral venue and dismissing the third party facilitator.”

Revolutionaries do not negotiate under the terms and conditions “of an emergent fascist dictatorship and in a place where mass murders are occurring with impunity,” said Sison, chief political consultant to the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the CPP’s political arm that is negotiating with the government.