Topic: Philippines

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.

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.

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.

In light of Duterte’s order to his negotiators to consult the wider public, Sison challenged the NDFP and GRP panels to divulge the results of four backchannel talks since March.
“I urge the two negotiating panels to release to the public and to the press the written and signed agreements of June 9 and 10 signed by the chairmen of the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels and by the members of their respective special teams,” he said.

Agcaoili revealed that even before Dureza’s announcement to postpone both the “stand down agreement” and the resumption of formal talks on June 21 and June 28, respectively, the GRP has already told him and the Third Party Facilitator (TPF), the Royal Norwegian Government, of its unilateral decision.