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Oris: Many surrenderees AFP’s own

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The New People’s Army (NPA) hit at the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) for parading “thousands of fake surrenderees” nationwide.

In a video message, NPA National Operations Command spokesperson Jorge Madlos said many of those paraded by the AFP before President Rodrigo Duterte are in fact members of their own paramilitary forces or innocent civilians who were forced by the military to pose as surrenderees.

“When we checked, the (AFP) list includes 36 Lumad paramilitaries from Lianga (Surigao del Sur) who are also on the list of those who massacred three fellow Lumads in September 1 (2015),” Madlos said.

Madlos added that the 36 paramilitary troopers are being led by Calpet Egua who is reported to have been trained, armed, supported and protected by the Philippine Army.

“The AFP uses this paramilitary group as fake NPA surrenderees to clear their names as having been involved in the massacre,” Madlos said.

Madlos, also known by his nom de guerre as Ka Oris, said it adds insult to injury that the so-called surrenderees were given houses and lots as well as pocket money by Duterte in a ceremony in Malacañan Palace.

Madlos said that the AFP also picked up civilians who were later presented as surrenderees as well as those who have long left the NPA and have already been living as ordinary farmers.

“They were again picked up and recycled as new surrenderees,” Madlos said.

“Although, in fact, there were real surrenderees, such as the alleged National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Far South Mindanao spokesperson,” he added, referring to Nilo Legaspi and his wife who surrendered last January.

Madlos said real surrenderees are very few and were only mixed with thousands of fake surrenderees.

The five or ten surrenderees does not make for a mass surrender of NPA forces, Madlos said.

Both Duterte and the AFP have repeatedly said the NPA is down to a few thousands of fighters left.

Far from being defeated

In January, former AFP chief of staff Rey Guerrero said the military is committed to weaken by 50 percent the NPA, which he said has only about 3,700 fighters nationwide.

In its presentation of hundreds of surrenderees to Duterte, the AFP said the so-called surrenderees were part of 4,000 who recently abandoned armed struggle.

“These are indicators of growing discontent within their organizations, the success of our programs, and the cooperation between residents and local government units,” AFP spokesperson Col. Edgard Arevalo said in a press conference last January.

Netizens, however, pointed out that the Duterte government in fact presented 300 more so-called surrendered members than the AFP’s claim of NPA’s 3,700 fighters.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said in their 49th anniversary statement last March that the NPA has more than a hundred guerilla fronts with at least company sized formations in addition as many People’s Militia units all over the country.

The CPP also said that Duterte and the AFP are wasting public funds on fake surrenderees.

“Over the past few months, Duterte himself and the entire military and defence establishment have spent hundreds of millions of pesos to stage Malacañang dinners with the president, tours around Luneta and other cheap gimmickry. The bigger portion of the monies, of course, line the pockets of armed forces field officials,” the CPP said in a statement last March.

“If we are to believe claims made by officials of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) at the end of 2017 that the NPA is down to 3,700 members, then by simple subtraction, one can conclude that the AFP under Duterte has already accomplished what the previous regimes have failed to do: defeat the NPA,” it added.

In a separate announcement, CPP founder Jose Ma. Sison said the NPA is nowhere near being defeated, being present in at least 73 of the country’s 81 provinces.

Sison added that NPA presence in these provinces “denotes the existence of the people´s militia and the self-defense units of the revolutionary mass organizations. These two layers of people´s defense are the auxiliary and reserve force of the NPA.” # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

 

TRAIN-driven rising cost of living makes wage hike urgent

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Research group IBON said that tax-driven inflation is making the meager wages of poor Filipinos fall even further behind the rising cost of living.

The group said this makes it even more urgent for the government to immediately raise wages even as it revisits the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law behind the increase in consumption taxes.

The Duterte administration would be insensitive if it continues to resist the clamor for a decent national minimum wage, the group added.

IBON said that accelerating inflation has increased the family living wage (FLW) in the National Capital Region (NCR) and elsewhere.

IBON computations show that as of June 2018, a family of six needs Php1,175 to meet their basic needs, while a family of five needs Php979.

The FLW has increased by Php65 for a family of six and by Php54 for a family of five in June 2018 from the same period last year.

As it is, said the group, the NCR nominal minimum wage of Php512 is falling even further behind the rising cost of living.

The NCR nominal wage is only 44 percent of the FLW for a family of six, and 52% of the FLW for a family of five with a wage gap of Php663 (56 percent) and Php467 (48 percent), respectively.

The wage gap will continue to widen as inflation erodes the minimum wage.

Reacting to economic planning secretary Ernesto Pernia who said that a wage hike is not necessary, the group said that an immediate wage hike will help poor Filipinos cope with price spikes.

The Duterte administration can respond to the demand of labor groups for a Php750 national minimum wage.

IBON stressed that there are enough profits in the economy and among corporations to support the substantial increase in the minimum wage needed by workers and their families.

IBON also belied claims by the country’s economic managers in their joint statement on the June 2018 inflation that TRAIN’s reduction of personal income taxes, cash transfers, and allocation for free social and economic services “should help in coping with the rising prices of goods.”

The group said that their assertion that TRAIN “increased the take-home pay of 99 percent of income tax payers” is grossly deceitful because they know that only around 7.5 million or one-third (33 percent) of Filipino families are income tax payers.

Of these, some two million were already exempt from paying income tax even before TRAIN because they were only minimum wage earners.

This means that 17.2 million or over three-fourths (76 percent) of Filipino families suffer inflation but without any increased take-home pay.

IBON also said that the government should stop hyping TRAIN’s cash transfers because when they are ended by 2020 the higher prices of goods and services due to TRAIN will remain.

The group said that the Duterte administration’s unrepentant defense of TRAIN is daily affirmation of its callousness to the plight of tens of millions of poor Filipinos and its refusal to replace TRAIN with a more genuinely progressive tax package that is unafraid to tax the rich. #

 

Human rights groups slam woman’s strip search

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By April Burcer

Various human rights groups are calling for the investigation of the reported strip search of a female drug suspect in a police station in Makati City that went viral last week.

Gabriela and Karapatan released separate statements condemning the act as despicable, cruel and degrading.

“What the Makati Police did to the arrested drug suspects was despicable, including the act of doing a strip search on a woman and having her bend over in front of the male and female police officers. This is another case of abuse of police authority to trample upon the rights of the oppressed,” Gabriela said.

Karapatan also said that the superiors of those involved “should be investigated as well to look into their accountability, considering the principle of command responsibility under the said law.”

Both groups are calling for the investigation of the incident and to hold the involved police officers accountable, and should be meted out with punishment under the Anti-Torture Law.

Makati City police chief Rogelio Simon, however, claimed that the video was just a demo and that the drug suspect involved consented to the procedure because of monetary benefits.

The Commission on Human Rights also launched its own investigation of the case and categorizes this as a form of psychological torture, which is prohibited under Republic Act (RA) No. 9745 or the Anti-Torture Act signed in 2009.

Culture of torture

The incident was not an isolated case according to Karapatan as the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency in Central Visayas (PDEA-7) also conducted strip searches of drug suspects during its so-called Greyhound operations in jail facilities in the region in May 2017.

“Despite these previous incidents, the practice continues. It is lamentable and infuriating that strip search is considered as “standard operating procedure” by the Philippine National Police and the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology (BJMP),” Karapatan’s statement said.

The practice should have been deemed illegal because of the Anti-Torture Law but authorities think that such acts are justifiable as long as they do it according to the guidelines and manual of operations, the group added.

Gabriela, on the other hand, blames this culture of “disrespect  and disregard of women’s rights” on President Rodrigo Duterte, ading  “it is not surprising that the fascist and anti-women culture among the police and the military also increases. “

In fact, even with the Anti-Torture Law, Karapatan has documented 248 victims of torture under the Benigno S. Aquino III administration and 94 victims of torture within the two years of the Duterte regime.

Gabriela is also appealing to other women who were victims of police abuse to come out and reveal whatever human rights injustices they have suffered in the hands of the police and military. #

 

Duterte’s TRAIN to blame for highest inflation in nearly 10 years — IBON

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Research group IBON said that the government’s insistence on higher taxes especially on the poor is among the factors driving inflation rates to their highest in nearly a decade.

The group said that runaway inflation is due to the peso depreciation and rising global oil prices combined with the Tax Reform for Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) law.

Among these, TRAIN’s higher consumption taxes are directly within the government’s control and it can immediately arrest the tax-driven portion of inflation if it chooses to do so.

The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) has reported a 5.2 percent inflation rate for the month of June.

The biggest price increases were in food, especially in corn, vegetables, meat and rice; alcohol and cigarettes; transport; housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels; and education.

This 5.2 percent inflation rate is more than double the 2.5 percent in the same period a year ago and four times the 1.3 percent inflation rate in June 2016 at the start of the Duterte administration.

The June inflation rate appears as the fastest in only five years because available estimates using the current base year [2012=100] are only until 2013.

But IBON noted that inflation today would already be the fastest in nearly a decade, or since March 2009, using inflation data according to the previous base year [2006=100] as an approximation.

Sonny Africa, IBON executive director, explained that the TRAIN-triggered increase in consumption taxes, especially on fuel products, is an inflation factor immediately within the government’s control.

“The Duterte administration’s insistence on TRAIN makes it directly accountable for the highest inflation in almost ten years,” said Africa, “and its pushing the higher taxes last year amid already rising global oil prices and a depreciating peso only underscores its insensitivity to the poor.”

Africa stressed that the runaway inflation hits poor Filipinos the hardest because their incomes are so low already that any price increase means they will be consuming less.

Moreover, food spending accounts for over half the expenses especially of the poorest households so that food prices are rising even faster than other commodities is particularly alarming.

The poorest are hit worst, Africa said, adding, “The cumulative impact of high inflation is that the poor will eat less, walk more, forego spending on medicines and treatment, scrimp on their utilities, and have nothing for emergencies.”

In the short-term, government can suspend TRAIN to moderate inflation and provide relief to millions of poor Filipinos. Even better, it can work towards eventually reforming the tax reform package to become genuinely progressive rather than regressive and anti-poor, said Africa.

Africa added that the government can also take measures to moderate inflation over the longer term. It can manage the impact of rising global oil prices through responsible regulation of the oil industry.

Arresting the peso’s steady decline will, he said, require a more comprehensive approach.

 

This includes identifying and overcoming: the long-standing agricultural and industrial backwardness at the root of the country’s chronic trade deficit; the over-reliance on overseas remittances for foreign exchange; and the over-reliance on foreign debt and investment. #

Duterte’s preconditions completely shutting down talks–CPP

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The Information Bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) said President Rodrigo Duterte is bent on completely shutting down the peace talks between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP).

Reacting to a statement issued by presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza Thursday (June 5), the CPP said the government’s claims that the doors for resuming peace talks with the NDFP are still open is an outright lie.

“[T]he GRP has repeatedly terminated the talks and make it appear that it is the NDFP which closed its doors,” the CPP said.

In a statement, Dureza said that while the doors for the resumption of the peace talks are still open, it is subject to the following wishes of the President:

  • There will be no coalition government,
  • There will be a stop in the collection of the so-called revolutionary tax,
  • The venue of the talks will be local,
  • There will be a ceasefire agreement in which armed NPA (New People’s Army) members are encamped in designated areas.

Dureza added the government may pursue localized peace arrangements.

“This ‘way forward’ in the stalled peace talks was decided following the consolidation of various positions expressed during the command conference convened by President Rodrigo Roa Duterte last night in Malacañang,” Dureza said.

The CPP, however said, that by demanding that future talks should be held in a local venue, Duterte is driving another nail to completely shut down the NDFP-GRP peace talks.

“He (Duterte) knows fully well that the demand to hold talks in the Philippines is unacceptable and unworkable for the NDFP, unless he thinks the NDFP will be negotiating only to surrender the Filipino people’s aspirations and give up all its revolutionary principles,” the CPP said.

The underground party added that by completely shutting the door to the negotiations, Duterte is laying down the conditions for imposing martial law or a general crackdown, use the terror proscription against the CPP and NPA against his critics and dissenters against his tyranny, and push charter change for pseudo-federalism to perpetuate himself in power.

The CPP also pointed out that Dureza’s statement did not mention the fact that Duterte issued Presidential Proclamation No. 360 last November 23, 2017 that formally terminated peace negotiations with the NDFP.

Duterte’s proclamation has never been rescinded, the CPP said.

Duterte also derailed efforts to resume talks by cancelling its scheduled resumption last June 28, it added.

Dureza’s statement was reiterated by presidential spokesperson Harry Roque in a press briefing in Malacañan Thursday morning.

‘Ignorant, arrogant’

Roque told reporters that Duterte is still open to the talks, provided his preconditions that the talks are held in the Philippines and that the NPA encamp are met.

Roque also revealed that the government is planning to come out with its so-called guidelines on localized peace talks.

“If the CPP-NPA would agree to these demands, the talks may still continue,” Roque said.

The Philippine Peace Center (PPC), however said Duterte’s preconditions “show utter ignorance, if not highhanded arrogance, in the conduct of peace negotiations,” adding such preconditions poison the atmosphere and is contrary to any serious, honest-to-goodness negotiation.

“To impose such preconditions on the NDFP is tantamount to demanding its capitulation or surrender, and therefore unacceptable,” PPC executive director Rey Claro Casambre said.

Casambre said that Duterte’s preconditions are absurd because they ignore that both sides have agreed to resolve the armed conflict through peaceful negotiations, with neither one imposing its will or its demands over the other across the negotiating table.

Casambre added that Duterte’s new preconditions violate GRP’s own set of principles and guidelines governing its position and conduct in the peace negotiations.

Quoting Executive Order (EO) 125 by the Fidel Ramos administration and EO 3 by the Gloria Macapagal Arroyo government, Casambre said the GRP has committed to “[a] comprehensive peace process seeks a principled and peaceful resolution to the internal armed conflicts, with neither blame nor surrender, but with dignity for all concerned.”

Casambre advised the GRP to get its act together, saying government officials commenting on the peace talks should learn the basics as well as the nuances from the more knowledgeable and hands-on Office of the Presidential Peace Adviser on the Peace Process and the GRP Panel.

“The result of all these ignorance and arrogance is that not only the GRP but the entire Filipino people are being deprived a useful venue for addressing and resolving the roots of the armed conflict,” Casambre added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Teachers call for 30K salary increase

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By April Burcer

Despite the rains, teachers from all over Metro Manila marched Wednesday afternoon (June 4) on EDSA to call for an across-the-board salary increase for mentors and employees in the education sector.

After their General Representatives’ Assembly earlier organized by the Alliance of Concerned Teachers-National Capital Region (ACT-NCR) Union, the teachers also demanded higher education budget and bigger chalk budget, among other issues.

The teachers’ assembly called for an increase in the monthly salary of non-teaching personnel to 16,000 and new teachers to 30,000 as proposed in House Bill 7211 filed by the ACT Teachers Party in Congress.

Joselyn Martinez, ACT-NCR Union President, criticized President Rodrigo Duterte for going back on his promise to increase teachers’ salaries even as he doubled the minimum wages of police and military personnel.

Duterte announced last month that he will increase the salary of teachers, although it will not be as substantial as those received by police and military personnel “because the government cannot afford it.”

ACT said teachers have only recently received a meager increase of 551 pesos per month under Executive Order (EO) No. 201 signed by President Benigno Aquino in 2016 that mandated a four-year pay increase for public sector workers.

ACT Secretary-General Raymond Basilio said that the Office of the President, Vice-President, senators and cabinet secretaries, on the other hand, have enjoyed the highest salary increases under EO 201.

Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque earlier declared that a special salary increase for teachers will only happen on 2020 when EO 201 is no longer in effect.

“They say we don’t have enough money for the teacher’s salary increase, but they have more than enough budget to pay for our external debt, for military expenses, the ‘Build, Build, Build’ program and pork barrel allocations,” Basilio said.

Overworked but underpaid.

ACT-NCR Union is also calling for better working environment for the overworked teachers.

Under the K-12 program, teachers have to deal with Individual Performance Commitment and Review Form (IPCRF) and other paperwork that eat up a lot of time, Basilio said.

Basilio added the limit of 26 children per class mandated by the Department of Education is also not being implemented, leaving teachers with up to 80 students per class.

Basilio is also concerned that the soon-to-be-implemented Learners’ Information System (LIS) will leave teachers with no sleep because these shall be held throughout the night.

ACT-NCR Union demands free annual medical and dental examination, regulation of class size and teaching load, provision of official time and union time privilege, and improvement of compensation during the next collective negotiation agreement to offset their overworked conditions.

ACT Partylist Representative Franz Castro for her part presented their effort to increase chalk allowance from 2,500 to 5000, augment the Personnel Economic Relief Assistance (PERA) to 5000 pesos, and provide teaching supplies allowance of 5000 pesos per classroom teacher per school year.

However, Castro said that it will not be possible to win this fight without the support of the teachers.

“Let’s join together in the coming State of the Nation Address to voice out our call for salary increases,” Castro said.  #

CPP: ‘Lorenzinitis’ afflicts the peace process

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The Information Bureau of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) lashed back at Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, saying the former general is the one defining the Rodrigo Duterte government’s policies on the peace talks.

Reacting to an article titled “The Public Should Know” attributed to Lorenzana, the CPP said the secretary defines the Duterte government’s so-called anti –peace policy “based on his one-track militarist mindset.”

“To Lorenzana and his ilk of fascists, including Duterte himself, the only solution to the civil war in the country is the military solution. This is the old 1930s dogma promoted by the US military [that] sees profit in every war it instigates and foments,” the CPP said in a statement.

CPP Information Bureau graphic describing Lorenzana’s so-called affliction.

The group said Lorenzana is a war promoter and consummate militarist who wants no non-military end to the civil war in the Philippines.

“He fears losing significance if the present civil war in the country is settled politically through peace negotiations. To him, the only solution is to recruit more and more soldiers to the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) in order to lay siege on thousands of barrios nationwide and sow terror among the people,” the CPP said.

A consistent critique of the peace process between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), Lorenzana again urged the Duterte administration to stop talking peace with the communists despite the President’s repeated clarification that he is only taking time off to review past agreements between the parties.

Lorenzana said negotiations on social and economic reforms are dangerous, blaming NDFP chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison for the agreements reached by the negotiating panels thus far.

“Let us not be lulled or hoodwinked by Sison’s glib tongue about reforms. They will institute reforms all right, but along communist lines when they have finally won,” Lorenzana wrote.

“In fact, they don’t even have to win because their socialistic CASER, which they are trying to ram down our throats, will ensure that they will have a foothold in governance,” he added.

Lorenzana threatened to pursue localized peace talks instead.

The New People’s Army has never agreed to negotiate with the government, however, repeatedly saying the NDFP Negotiating Panel is their only representative to the peace talks.

The CPP said the defense secretary’s wild and violent imagination as well as ”allergy to peace” are symptoms to an affliction called “lorenzanitis”.

“To the broad masses of workers and peasants, Duterte, Lorenzana and the AFP, are the real terrorists. Lorenzana, who once served as the military attache in Washington, is a big United States (US) military sales agent in the Philippine government,” the CPP said.

The CPP recalled that Lorenzana rejected the 5,000 assault rifles from China for the AFP and disposed it to the Philippine National Police instead.

“He is the zealous US sentry that ensures that the AFP will always remain as the key pillar of US hegemonism in the Philippines,” the group added. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Sr. Pat: You have to do something

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By April Burcer

“You have to do something,” Australian missionary Sr. Patricia Fox, NDS said during a solidarity forum held at the Ateneo de Manila University last June 29, Friday.

“You can’t stay numb when there are massive human rights abuses, injustices and poverty,” the missionary said at the forum entitled D’yandi, about the breakdown of the peace talks, injustices and human rights abuses plaguing the country.

Fox said that the challenge for church members is the determination what the role of the Church is when there are injustices, poverty and human rights abuses.

Fox has been the subject of personal tirades by President Rodrigo Duterte who infamously said that the nun’s God is stupid.

“We do have a little difference with the President about who God is,” the nun said, adding she is being forced to confine herself to church activities.

“They said missionaries like me should only be in barangays, teaching church doctrines, not be involved with the issues of society,” Fox said.

But the nun said she will continue her missionary work with the poor sectors of Philippine society.

“I cannot not be involved with the people who are oppressed, who are victims of injustice or of war.  My belief is (the poor people are) who God is,” she explained.

The missionary emphasized the need to be aware of the issues in the society, looking into the system and doing something about it.

“That’s what I thought I was doing. At this stage, the government doesn’t agree with this,” she said, referring to the attacks the government has been throwing at her.

Farmers and justice

Fox has been working with farmers and the poor for more than 27 years and she said she learned so much in the Philippines, especially the plight of the farmers.

“Why are industrious farmers still poor? Over the time I learned there were problems. There were people who said they own the land but farmers have been tilling that land for a long time so how can it be their land? The farm lands are far and the roads then are rough. How do you get your produce to the market? You have to sell to a trader at a loss,” she said.

She also worked with farmers of Hacienda Luisita and other missionaries on a fact-finding mission where some of her colleagues were arrested.

However, this did not stop Fox from continuing with her work.

“I believe that is part of our mission. How can we have peace, how can we have justice, if there’s no justice for the farmers?” she asked. #

 

Progressives hold Black Friday Protest on Duterte’s 2nd year in office

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Progressive groups held a Black Friday Protest at along EDSA, Quezon City last June 29, 2018 on the eve of the second anniversary of President Rodrigo Duterte ascension to office.

Aside from narrating Duterte’s failed promises, the protesters complained of the many human rights violations committed under his administration.

Joma says only NDFP Council decides on talks termination

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Jose Maria Sison clarified that he did not terminate the peace negotiations between the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP), saying it is only their group’s National Council that can make the decision to suspend, cancel or terminate their peace negotiations with the government.

“[The NDFP] has not yet made such a decision,” Sison said in a statement Friday, June 29.

Reacting to news reports that he has cancelled or terminated the peace negotiations, Sison said that he only made a critical review of GRP President Rodrigo Duterte’s behaviour in relation to the stalled peace negotiations.

“I deplored among other things his failure to fulfil his promise to amnesty and release all political prisoners and his repeated whimsical termination of the negotiations as many as three times. It is very likely that he will convert his three-month suspension of the formal talks to one more termination,” Sison said.

In his presentation to a forum entitled “Political implications of the current impasse and prospects of the GRP-NDFP peace talks Thursday, Sison said that based on the implications drawn from the current impasse, the NDFP can no longer negotiate with a GRP that is headed by Duterte.

“So long as he heads the GRP, the Filipino people, especially the oppressed and exploited, cannot expect any benefit from negotiating with the Duterte regime,” Sison, speaking via online streaming from The Netherlands, said.

In his clarification issued Friday, Sison said he made the estimate that Duterte will render the resumption of formal negotiations impossible by imposing on the NDFP the demand that the venue be shifted to Manila.

“The NDFP will not agree to such a demand because it violates the JASIG (Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees) provision for a neutral venue abroad and because NDFP does not want to put its negotiating panel and related personnel under the control, surveillance and duress by Duterte and the military,” Sison said.

Sison added he let Duterte have the singular dishonor of repeatedly terminating the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations within so short a time, repeatedly pointing out that Duterte is not interested in the peace negotiations but in scapegoating the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines) and NPA (New People’s Army) for the purpose of declaring martial law nationwide or a state of emergency “in his mad drive to establish a fascist dictatorship under the guise of charter change to federalism.”

“In this regard, I have observed that it would be easier to cause the ouster of Duterte than to expect a just and honorable peace agreement with GRP under his command,” Sison explained.

Sison earlier said that while NDFP is not completely closing the door on the peace negotiations, the NDFP will study very carefully any offer by the government to resume formal peace negotiations.

‘Let Duterte do it’

In the said forum, NDFP chief negotiator Fidel Agcaoili said their group has always readied itself for any breakdown in the talks.

“It’s nearing untenable stratus,” Agcaoili, also speaking via online streaming, said, citing the Duterte government’s new measures like the crackdown on street loiterers and continuing killings linked to its drug war.

Acaoili also said Duterte’s incendiary remarks, the arrests and killings of activists and threats against churches and human rights groups are meant to provoke rebel forces.

Agcaoili said Duterte should be the one to finally terminate formal peace negotiations with the NDFP.

“Siya mag-terminate,” Agcaoili said. (Let [Duterte] terminate.)

“Any side can move to terminate. But if we walk first, he will use it as an excuse to unleash his fascist dictatorship,” he added.

Agcaoili said the revolutionary forces must not let down its guard against Duterte.

“Revolutionary and progressive forces must exercise vigilance and be committed to act in self-defense, especially forces in the underground,” he said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)