While the Cabinet’s security cluster fully supports the Chief Executive’s call for lasting peace, he can’t help but be skeptical of the communist groups’ sincerity.

Former member of the New People’s Army who goes by the alias Ka Dada recounts supposed hidden agenda of the communist movement during a University of the Philippines forum. ANALY LABOR @tribunephl_ana

To keep President Rodrigo Duterte from totally locking the door he has kept open for the possible resumption of peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP), leftist extremists should ensure they will participate in the negotiations “without deceit,” National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. said.

According to Esperon, while the Cabinet’s security cluster fully supports the Chief Executive’s call for lasting peace, he can’t help but be skeptical of the communist groups’ sincerity in wanting to go back to the bargaining table.

He is a president who will never close that small window for peace talks.

“The talks, to me, is a way for the President to tell them that indeed, he is a president who will never close that small window for peace talks. But truth to tell, what kind of peace talks are we talking about?” Esperon expressed in an interview following the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ 84th founding anniversary celebration last Tuesday evening.

“They want to talk peace and yet they make demands, they’re jumping the gun. They also continue with their attacks,” he added, referring to last week’s ambush in Borongan, Eastern Samar that left two dead and several others, including an infant, wounded.

Esperon went on by claiming he has videos showing NDF negotiator Luis Jalandoni saying the peace talks is only a front to the left’s real motive of toppling the government.

“I will give you a videotape recording of Jalandoni, who has been a chairman of the NDF panel, saying the peace talks are just a platform to advance the cause of the armed struggle,” stated the former military chief.

He then stressed how the communist movement has significantly weakened following the President’s issuance of Executive Order (EO) 70 that directed all concerned agencies to address local armed conflict in the grassroots level.

The number of former NPA combatants laying down their arms and returning to the side of the law, noted Esperon, is proof that CPP founding chairman Jose Maria Sison does not wield the same level of influence anymore.

“It (EO 70) is all for social justice. It is not combat operations. It is more for the delivery of basic services and goods to the people residing in areas facing insurgency,” he said, adding that Sison is “far detached” from the real situation in the country having been in self-exile to The Netherlands since 1987.

Asked if Mr. Duterte could possibly give in to Sison’s demand to hold the negotiations in a “neutral” country, Esperon maintained that the President remains firm in his decision for the talks to be held on local soil.

“That’s what he wanted ever since he terminated the peace talks in 2017. He wants it here in the Philippines and nowhere else,” he noted.