DAVAO CITY—“Let us go to war!”

A combative President Rodrigo Duterte sent this message to communist rebels on Friday night as prospects for the resumption of the peace talks under his administration grew dimmer.

The President said he had studied all the documents and past agreements between the communist rebels, represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in the talks, and previous administrations and they all indicated the rebels wanted to share power with the government.

“If you read it, it all ends up with power sharing and a coalition government,” the President said at the opening of National Science and Technology Week in SMX Convention Center in Davao City. “That is where the direction is.”

“I cannot give it to you. Let’s go to war. Let us all go to war … The fighting has lasted 50 years. Now, we’re about to begin another 50 years [of war],” the 73-year-old President said.

Proposed reforms

He said the rebels were proposing economic reforms, referring to the draft Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (Caser), which government and rebel negotiators were supposed to discuss had formal talks been resumed as scheduled on June 28.

Caser, one of four proposed agreements on the negotiating table, seeks to carry out, among other things, a radical agrarian reform program that would allow the seizure of parcels of land of questionable ownership and distributing these for free to landless farmers.

The proposed economic reforms also sought “national industrialization,” with local mines supplying Philippine factories with raw materials instead of just exporting mineral ores.

‘If that’s my destiny . . .’

The President also ranted anew against Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose Maria Sison, saying he was irritated by a statement attributed to Sison that he would not last three years in his position.

“‘Duterte will not last until three years.’ Well, it’s fine. If that’s my destiny, I will accept it. There’s no problem with it,” the President said.

“Destiny is God, that is what God wants me to be, a civilian after three years. According to Sison, the clairvoyant of the CPP,” he added.

During informal meetings in the Netherlands, the NDFP and the government panels had agreed to resume formal negotiations, which were terminated by the President in November last year, on June 28-30 in Norway.

The Norwegian government has been facilitating the talks to end the nearly 50-year-old insurgency in the country.

The two sides were also supposed to announce separately an order to the military and the New People’s Army (NPA) to stand down—a preliminary truce prior to a formal bilateral ceasefire agreement. They also planned to sign an interim peace agreement.

Plans collapsed

All the negotiators’ plans collapsed after the President canceled the Oslo talks, saying the government needed to first hold public consultations on the previous agreements.

On Wednesday, the government set four new conditions, based on the “wishes” of the President, to resume the talks — that they be held in the Philippines, that there be a ceasefire during which NPA guerrillas must remain in designated camps, that the rebels stop collecting “revolutionary taxes,” and that there should be no coalition government.

Sison rejected holding talks in the country. He and the NDFP have repeatedly denied they were seeking a coalition government.

Sison also denied the rebels planned to oust the President by October this year, saying the so-called plan was a “mere fabrication” by Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, who has openly opposed the talks. —Inquirer Mindanao

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