COMMUNIST Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison says he welcomes the prospect of talking with President Rodrigo Duterte to discuss the possibility of reviving the terminated peace talks between the government and the communists.
“In the interest of the Filipino people and for the sake and purpose of resuming the peace negotiations, I am willing to have serious conversations with President Duterte,” Sison said in a statement Sunday night.
He proposed that he and Duterte meet in a neighboring country for the one-on-one talk.
“Considering our mutual convenience and sense of prudence, we can meet in a country that is a neighbor of the Philippines. The chairmen of the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels can agree on the arrangements,” said Sison who has been in self-exile in The Netherlands since 1987.
“After the resumption of the peace negotiations, I can go to the Philippines for my first visit after a long time.”
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said Monday the New People’s Army must first show humility and cited the communist rebels’ offensives against government troopers while the peace talks were ongoing.
“It is not as if the President said he [was] willing to resume the peace talks after he talked to Joma Sison. No. What he said was the NPA must first show humility,” Roque said.
While Duterte did indeed say he would be willing to talk to Sison, Roque said the talk was not a condition for the peace talks to resume. He insisted that power sharing would be “impossible.”
“He [President Duterte] wants the general acknowledgment [that] the NPA are human beings, are Filipinos, and that they respect the sovereignty of the Philippines,” Roque said.
He said the NPA needed to show sincerity by not launching attacks on government forces.
The government in November ended the peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDFP following the escalation of attacks and violence by the communists.
In his exclusive interview with MindaNews on Friday, Duterte floated the possibility of talking with Sison.
Before Duterte terminated the talks with the communists, the long-stalled fifth round of the peace negotiations had been scheduled for Nov. 25 to 27, 2017 in Norway.
The Norwegian government had acted as third-party facilitator of the talks to put an end to the 48-year-old insurgency, the longest-running in Asia.
On Dec. 5, Duterte signed Proclamation 374 declaring the communists as terrorists and had them arrested under the Human Security Act.