It’s their loss, not ours.
National Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said that the cancellation of the trip of National Democratic Front chief negotiator Fidel Agacoiili and consultants Luis Jalandoni and Coni Ledesma to the country is not a loss for the government since it is NDF which is desperate to resume the aborted peace talks.
“Hindi kawalan sa gobyerno kung ituloy man o hindi nina Mr. Jalandoni at Ms. Ledesma ang pagbalik sa Pilipinas,” Lorenzana said in a statement. “After all, it is not the government that is desperate to resume peace talks with the NDF [National Democratic Front].”
“It is also not to government that is losing a large number of fighters because of the effectiveness of the localized peace talks and the Enhanced Comprehensive Local Integration Program [E-CLIP],” he added.
Communist Party of the Philippines founding chairman Jose Maria Sison earlier said that the NDF top officials canceled their trip to the country for ‘security reasons,’ while also calling the military and police as President Rodrigo Duterte’s ‘minions.”
Lorenzana said Sison’s statement was an insult not only to the military and police but to President Duterte himself.
“Minion is a term of contempt. It means a servile, fawning, and an unimportant person who is at the beck and call of a powerful person,” Lorenzana said.
“This is a great insult to our police and military officers and personnel who are doing their jobs with utmost dedication and professionalism in serving the Filipino people,” he added.