PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday assured the leaders of the National Democratic Front that their consultants will be able to join the resumption of the peace talks in Oslo next week in the hope of ending Asia’s longest-running communist insurgency.
In a meeting in Malacañang, he assured the members of the NDF panel that their leaders will be allowed to join the peace talks under the auspices of the Norwegian government.
“The president assured the NDF lawyers that the NDF consultants will fly to Oslo,” Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello III said.
“The president said while he was hurt by the sharp exchanges between him and CPP founding chair Jose Maria Sison, who is based in The Netherlands, he gave assurances that he will walk the extra mile for peace,” Peace Process Secretary Jesus Dureza said.
In the House of Representatives, the Makabayan Bloc urged Duterte to grant a “general, unconditional and omnibus” amnesty to all political prisoners in the country.
In House Resolution 198, Reps. Carlos Isagani Zarate, Antonio Tinio, France Castro, Emmi de Jesus, Arlene Brosas, Ariel Casilao and Sarah Elago said the grant of amnesty was in accordance with the Constitution.
Bello, who heads the government panel negotiating with the NDF, said the government will not pose objections to giving temporary liberty to 22 Jasig protected consultants to speed up the peace negotiations.
In a speech Monday, Duterte said while a coalition government would not work, he would like the NDF to help him in “shaping up” his government.
He said he was open to any proposal that “would address the root of rebellion in the countryside.”
“I was talking to the NDF panel and we had a discussion about how to shape up a government without necessarily going into the complicated task of coalition, because I don’t think it will work,” Duterte said.
GPH panel member Angela Librado-Trinidad said Duterte had instructed the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation and the Department of Foreign Affairs “to assist the NDF consultants who will be traveling to Oslo, Norway, over the weekend for the formal talks slated for Monday next week, August 22.”