AFP blasts Sison’s duplicity

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Colonel Edgard Arevalo on Tuesday urged President Duterte to terminate the ongoing dialogue with Communist Party of the Philippines-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NDFP) led by Jose Maria Sison.

The AFP official is fed up with Sison and his alleged duplicity when the communist organization talks of peace but secretly continues to undermine the peace negotiations.

According to Arevalo, the AFP is willing to support ‘a peace talk that embodies the desire of the people to put an end to this fighting’ and not the version of ‘peace talks’ proposed by the CPP-NDFP.

“Regroup, refurbish, recruit and recover lost grounds – these are the CPP-NDFP’s plan while negotiating for peace that is only favorable to them,” Arevalo said.

He also said the AFP supports ‘localized peace talks’ where local government units negotiate with the local terrorists and their members even as army forces will ensure peace and security.

An indigenous peoples group numbering 646 signed a resolution calling the government and President Duterte to put an end to the NDFP peace talks and the ceasefire with the NPA.

“We are the indigenous people (IP) of Mindanao composed of 18 major ethnographic tribes, and located in 25 provinces of Mindanao occupying an ancestral domain with a land area of 5.7 million hectares. Our total population is roughly 10 million or 50 percent of the total Mindanao population has come up with this resolution. As the representatives, we have been exposed, seen and heard more than a century of historical injustice and almost 50 years of social injustice and the violation of our human rights by the CPP-NDF,” Arevalo quoted the indigenous people group in an abstract of the resolution.

The AFP also welcomed the move by the Department of Justice revoking the bail granted to CPP-NDF personalities now on temporary liberty.