No formal talks with Reds, stalled peace negotiations won’t resume yet

It's not the stalled peace talks that the government is trying to resume when it announced a possible engagement with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines, Presidential Peace Adviser Secretary Carlito Galvez Jr. said Wednesday.

Galvez said that the Oslo joint communique between the government and the NDFP has come out from exploratory ideas. 

"The basis of our statement came out from the exploratory, and we would like to clarify the terms and conditions for the formal peace process. Hindi pa po napag-uusapan and that is among the consensus that we would like to create in the future," Galvez said in a media interview on the sidelines of the Armed Forces of the Philippines' Leadership Summit in  Mabalacat, Pampanga.

He also clarified that peace negotiations with the communists are not yet on the agenda.

"This is not a resumption of the talks, nor a restart. The future peace engagement is a fresh start of peace negotiations," said Galvez, noting that mutual respect will prevail should the fresh negotiation push through between the government and the communists. 

In a separate interview, Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro Jr. emphasized that there are no peace negotiations yet underway, but noted the government is open to preliminary talks. 

"Well any good fate effort for preliminary talks, I mean the government naturally is open for preliminary talks. And the important thing is that we are not constrained in our law enforcement operations against the CPP-NPA-NDF," Teodoro said. 

"The headline that came out in peace talks. That is not the correct situation. These are exploratory talks, there are no formal peace talks yet and so there are people who are reacting are jumping the line," he added.