IT HAD already been looking grim: communist insurgents were saying they would abandon a six-month-old ceasefire on February 10th because the government was refusing to free some 400 captured comrades. Then, on February 1st, communist guerrillas waylaid and murdered three unarmed soldiers in civilian clothes, said the army. The police found 76 bullet wounds in the corpses. The killings enraged Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines’ president, who vented: “What, is a soldier a dog?” In the end it was Mr Duterte who called off the government’s ceasefire and the peace talks it had fostered.

Mr Duterte had said before that he was willing to “walk the extra mile” to end the 50-year-old insurgency. But this week Mr Duterte not only suspended peace talks with the communist National Democratic Front (NDF), but also called for the re-arrest of members who had been released from detention so that they could take part in the talks. He says he now regards the NDF and its guerrilla wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), as terrorists. “I’m asking the soldiers, go back to your camps, clean your rifles and be ready to fight,” he said. In the following days the security forces reported a growing number of encounters with the NPA. The defence minister, Delfin Lorenzana, declared: “It is an all-out war.”

The government and the NDF had initiated separate ceasefires in August, paving the way for peace talks in Oslo, brokered by the Norwegian government. But in the absence of agreed terms or a monitoring mechanism, the truce was always going to be shaky. The guerrillas persisted in extorting money from businesses, while the security forces kept encroaching on NPA territory. The chief negotiator for the NDF, Fidel Agcaoili, accused the government of using the truce “as a cover for state security forces to engage in hostile actions, provocations or movements, surveillance and other offensive operations”.

The defence ministry retorted, before the government cancelled its ceasefire: “Security forces will continue to maintain peace and order and run after lawless elements whoever and wherever they are.” It added: “We do not recognise the NPA’s claims to areas which they believe are under their control.”

The fighting, when it resumed, was neither much heavier nor much lighter than it had been in the three decades since the first efforts were made to bring about peace. The communist revolution, although occasionally still deadly, is feeble. The collapse of communism elsewhere in the world has left the NDF isolated. Its leaders, the most prominent of whom live in exile, are elderly.

The armed forces estimate that the NPA has roughly 5,000 guerrillas scattered around the country, chiefly on the southern island of Mindanao, where Mr Duterte is from. Those 5,000 are theoretically fighting to overturn the constitutional order in a country of 102m people. In practice they cling on mainly by threatening violent reprisals against businesses that fail to pay what they call “revolutionary taxes”.

The sticking point in the talks before they foundered had been the detainees. The communists regard them as political prisoners. The government considers them common criminals, whatever the motivation for their crimes. The minimum the NDF seems likely to accept in return for ending its rebellion is amnesty for its forces, whether detained or at large. It must press its demand before its revolution fizzles out completely and its leaders die of old age. The government, however, is disinclined to grant an amnesty. It not only wants the communists to agree to abandon the armed struggle permanently; it also wants convincing evidence that they will stick to such a pledge.

The Philippine state, unlike the revolution and its leaders, is not on its last legs, so has time on its side. And Mr Duterte is popular, thanks partly to his tough-guy persona. (This week he told cops accused of corruption that they could resign or be sent to a region racked by conflict with Islamists.) He says he might resume peace talks with the NDF if there were a compelling reason to do so. The communists, he remarked this week, have been fighting for 50 years. “If you want to extend it for another 50 years—so be it,” he said. “We’d be happy to accommodate you. After all, I said, ‘I walk the extra mile.’”