THE communist rebels should “move on” and abandon the armed struggle, Malacañang said Monday. Describing the 49-year-old communist insurgency as a lost cause, presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said the communists had been waging a protracted armed struggle for so long that they could soon “land on the Guinness Book of World Records.”
“Ano ba ‘yan? Kailangang umusad na. Move on na kayo,” Roque told reporters in Davao City.
But he said the leftists in the Duterte administration would be staying for now despite President Rodrigo Duterte’s decision to terminate the peace talks with the communists.
“For as long as they remain in their posts, they enjoy the trust and confidence of the President. When they go, the president then obviously had ceased to have trust and confidence in them,” Roque said.
There remains three left-leaning personalities in the Duterte administration: National Anti-Poverty Commission Secretary Liza Maza, Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor Chairman Terry Ridon, and Labor Undersecretary Joel Maglunsod.
Roque said other previously communist countries had espoused capitalism as he dismissed Communist Party of the Philippines’ founder Jose Maria Sison who called the President a “political swindler.”
“That’s really foul. I will not even dignify the name-calling,” he said.
Roque said Duterte had even supported the rebels’ party-list groups and appointing leftists to his Cabinet.
But on Thursday last week Duterte signed Proclamation 360 declaring the termination of the government’s peace talks with the communist rebels.
He said he would soon declare the CPP as a terrorist group, and at the same time told the communist leaders out on bail to participate in the peace talks to surrender.
“I have ordered the release of about 30 to 40 communist leaders from Muntinlupa,” Duterte said. “Now, I will consider the Communist Party of the Philippines as a terrorist group. I am ordering those I have released temporarily to surrender. You have to go back to where you belong.”
