TENSION flared on Tuesday during a protest rally in front of Malacañang when members of the Presidential Security Group tried to block and disperse a street rally urging President Rodrigo Duterte to continue the peace talks with communist rebels.
The rallyists were mostly relatives of political prisoners and victims of enforced disappearances.
The protesters converged outside Malacañang’s Gate 2.
They carried with them banners saying “Resume peace talks” and a letter requesting an audience with Duterte.
The situation escalated when members of the PSG arrived to announce that mass actions in the area are prohibited.
The presidential guards seized the protesters’ banners and tied to confiscate journalists’ camera footage of the incident.
A reporter also engaged in a tug of war for his mobile phone with a PSG guard who attempted to erase the video clips of the incident from the device.
The reporter was able to secure his mobile phone by fleeing on board his crew cab.
After the tension subsided, activists Amaryllis Hilao Enriquez and Danny Dela Fuento were able to eventually hand their letter for Duterte to members of the Presidential Management Staff.
President Duterte on Saturday said he is pulling out the government from the peace negotiations with communists.
During his visit to his parents’ tombs in Davao City, Duterte said he is ordering members of the government’s peace panel to “to fold up the tents and come home.”
“Peace talks will remain canceled unless there is a compelling reason that will benefit the interest of the nation,” he said.
The peace panels of the government and the National Democratic Front were supposed to hold a special meeting in The Netherlands this month to discuss the bilateral ceasefire.
A bilateral ceasefire is included in the agenda of the peace panels in the scheduled resumption of talks in April in Oslo, Norway.
Duterte cited the failed peace negotiations since the time of President Fidel Ramos until the time of former President Benigno Aquino III.
He insisted that he will not order the release of all 400 political prisoners.
He also denied making a promise to release all political prisoners.
“We started with 18 and we came up with 23 leaders and now its 400. We’d rather surrender [than comply to this demand],” he said.
He added: “I am not interested arguing with them… I never promised.. I said [National Democractic Front-Communist Party of the Philippines] leaders, so that leaders can go to Oslo to talk… Now it’s 400, if it’s 400, why not all ? What would we talk about?”
Duterte on Friday announced that he is suspending the government’s unilateral ceasefire with the communist group.
The Communist Party of the Philippines earlier suspended its unilateral ceasefire with the government.