President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said there would be no talks with communist rebels, citing attacks on military personnel and social workers distributing relief and cash amid the quarantine.
“There is no more peace talks to talk about. I am not and I will never be ready for any round of talks kasi simply the NPA, the Communist Party of the Philippines, has no respect either for their spoken words or in their deeds of killing soldiers who are on humanitarian missions.”
In a statement, the Palace cited a military report that said two soldiers were killed and three others were wounded in an encounter with New People’s Army (NPA) rebels during aid distribution in Aurora province.
On April 13, the peace and order council of Balangiga town in Eastern Samar issued a resolution condemning the communist NPA for “relief goods confiscation,” after an earlier denial by local officials that such incident took place.
Communist leader Jose Ma. Sison tweeted: “Duterte needs the peace talks more than the revolutionary movement.”
“He pretends not to know that his regime and the entire ruling system are in rapidly worsening crisis because of the puppetry, brutality and corruption of his regime and the crisis aggravated by the Covid-19,” he added. (PressONE.ph)