PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte will be consulting the security cluster if the government will push through with the resumption of the peace talks with the communist rebels, Malacañang said Sunday.
A report on ABS-CBN quoted Presidential Spokesman Ernesto Abella as saying that Duterte needed to consider the lives lost and the properties destroyed by the rebels before the peace panels from both sides could go back to the negotiating table.
“To resume the talks necessitates President Duterte to consult first with the members of his security cluster, considering the many lives lost and the civilian and government property destroyed,” Abella said.
He said Duterte would also have to talk to Congress and the judiciary on the matter.
“In spite of PRRD’s [Duterte’s] firm position to protect the nation from violence and terrorism, his fundamental goal is sustainable and lasting peace, which in this case begins with addressing social injustice as the historical root of the conflict,” Abella said.
In his speech on Saturday, Duterte said he was open to resuming the peace talks with the communists but stressed that he could not grant all of their demands.
The peace talks between the government and the communists was canceled due to the continuing assaults by the New People’s Army, the communists’ armed wing.
