PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Saturday expressed hopes that gun battles will take a back seat this Christmas season.
Asked for his Christmas message, Duterte told reporters he is hoping for a peaceful Christmas, including with the communists and even the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.
“I’d like to greet everybody, the Filipino people, the law-abiding, and of course, if they find it in their hearts though this is not really something for the Moro but you know that this kind of events is closest to the hearts of the Christians, that we can have a peaceful Christmas,” Duterte said on his visit to the Western Mindanao Command.
He also urged terrorist group Abu Sayyaf to “take a vacation.”
“I am asking everyone if we can have a peaceful Christmas. Maybe we can resume fighting some other day,” Duterte said.
“I’d like to greet everybody, the communists, the Abu Sayyaf, on behalf of the Filipino people, Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year for all,” he added.
Fresh from his state visits to Cambodia and Singapore, President Duterte took time Saturday to visit the 16 soldiers who were wounded in action during their recent military encounters with the Abu Sayyaf Group in Basilan and Sulu.
The soldiers were confined at the Camp Navarro General Hospital in Zamboanga City.
In the same visit, the President also gave financial assistance to the families of the three killed-in-action soldiers.
The President talked to the wounded soldiers and the families of the slain military men, and gave them words of encouragement while extending the financial assistance and giving mobile phones.
“We should take care of our soldiers. They are giving up their lives for this republic,” Duterte said.
Leftists on Sunday complained that only one pardoned political prisoner has been released since peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front were revived in August.
“For the record, as of date, only one political prisoner who has been pardoned has been released via the peace process,” said lawyer Edre Olalia, legal counsel for the communist panel and secretary general of the National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers.
“Meanwhile one other political prisoner has already died and two others [have been] hospitalized.
Since August, around 20 others have been released on various modes (bail, acquittal, dismissal, service of sentence etc.) on their own merits through the routine judicial procedures, independent of the peace process, proving that the tortoise can eventually actually outrun the hare,” said Olalia.
On December 2, Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III announced that President Duterte has granted presidential pardon to four communist rebels.
It was not immediately clear from Olalia’s post if the lone freed political prisoner was among these four recently pardoned.
The Duterte administration is holding talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front in an effort to end one of Asia’s longest-running communist insurgency.
Duterte has said that he will not release rebel detainees without a signed ceasefire agreement between the government and NDF panels.
The government panel holding peace talks with the NDF has submitted a list of 200 prisoners to be released, under the new guidelines of the Presidential Committee on Bail, Recognizance and Parole.
Some 25 of them are elderly, sick and women.
But the NDF claimed 434 rebels are still being detained all over the country and has sought their release.