Armed Forces of the Philippines chief Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr. understands where Vice President Sara Duterte is coming from when she criticized the Marcos administration's decision to reopen talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

"Well, first of all, I cannot blame the vice president for saying this. This opinion is shared by so many in our country, even soldiers—others share the same sentiments because of the experience that we had with them," Brawner said, in a television interview, when asked for a comment on Duterte's recent statement about the Oslo communique between the government and the CPP-NPA-NDFP.

Brawner recalled the government had several talks with the communist groups with some political prisoners being freed in disguise for peace negotiations while trying to strengthen their ground armed wing, NPA.

"But right now, we believe that the [Oslo] statement is moving towards lasting peace, particularly me, I believe that this could lead to lasting peace, because in the first place, they said that these talks will have no preconditions, there will be no ceasefire, there will be no release of political prisoners so exploratory talks," he said.

Brawner reiterated that the AFP will continue conducting focused military operations against the remaining guerrilla fronts of the NPA, pending the final peace agreement between the government and the communists.

"I told all our troops, we will continue our operations. Huwag tayong masyadong mabahala doon sa nangyayaring (we should not worry too much about these) exploratory talks, as long as we know what our task is, what our mission is then we will continue the conduct of our operations," he said.

In her speech at the 5th founding anniversary of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict on Monday, the vice president urged President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to review the government's statement with the CPP's political arm, NDFP, which she described as an "agreement with the devil."

Duterte said that the CPP-NPA-NDFP, as proven in history, has "no sincerity in peace talks."

"They will use this peace negotiation to betray the government and deceive the people. We appeal to your power to review these proclamations and agreements," Duterte warned.

However, Brawner said the government will know the weight of the CPP-NPA-NDFP's sincerity in any peace negotiation once they have already closed a final peace agreement with the government.

"We will know its real when they finally signed the final peace agreement so this has a process, it started with a joint statement, and for us, the phrase they used in the joint statement that 'they are willing to end the armed struggle'— yung talagang gustong gusto po namin (we holding onto that)," Brawner stressed.

"Joma Sison was ready to announce, if he did not die, he would have announced that they are willing to end the armed struggle, so now, after the joint statement, the next one would be the framework agreement and then finally the final peace agreement," he further explained.

Brawner said the stages of peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDFP will likely be similar to the stages of the government's peace agreement with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and Moro National Liberation Front.

"We will apply the same, so we will finally know if they are sincere once that final peace agreement has been signed," he added.