(Eagle News) — The “no. 1 terrorist in the Philippines.”
This was how Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, described President Rodrigo Duterte, following his decision to cancel peace talks with the CPP-New People’s Army-National Democratic Front and his announcement he would declare them and their “legal fronts” as terrorists.
In a statement, Sison said his former student was “culpable for the abduction, torture and mass murder of an increasing large number of poor people suspected drug users and pushers, peasants and indigenous people in suspected guerrilla fronts and Moro people suspected of aiding the Dawlah Islamiyah from the time of the indiscriminate bombing of Marawi City to the present in several Bangsamoro areas.”
“And yet Duterte is utterly malicious and shameless in threatening and scheming to label and outlaw as terrorists the suspected members and entireties of such revolutionary organizations as the (NDFP), the (CPP) and the (NPA) and even such legal patriotic and progressive organizations as BAYAN and its affiliates,” Sison said.
Sison also blasted what he said was a “US-Duterte regime” that was “hell-bent on frustrating the people´s clamor for peace negotiations to address the roots of the civil war through the adoption and implementation of social, economic, political and constitutional reforms as the basis of a just and lasting peace.”
“The regime is striving to intimidate the people with its own terrorist scheme and crimes in order to seize absolute autocratic power for Duterte and limitless opportunity for the bureaucratic corruption of his family and ruling clique,” Sison said.
Duterte announced he would no longer pursue talks with the communist rebels four days ago, saying he was fed up of their “depredations” including the supposed killing of a four-month-old baby.
He also noted what he said was the rebels’ penchant for killing his soldiers even when a ceasefire was in place.