Everyone is setting new goals to achieve as they welcome the new year — and for the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), their top priority for 2019 will be the ouster of President Rodrigo Duterte.
This was revealed by the Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, on Wednesday, January 2. NDFP is CPP’s political arm that represents rebels in talks.
In a Facebook post, Sison said the NDFP “will further “strengthen itself as the most consolidated realization of the national united front but will be able to cooperate with all possible allies in the broad united front in order to isolate and oust the Duterte regime from power.”
The NDFP, he explained, is open to peace negotiations with the government, but its “principal work” now is the removal of Duterte from office.
It was in November 2017 when Duterte formally terminated peace talks with the CPP-New People’s Army (NPA)-NDFP through Proclamation No. 360, saying that the communist rebels did not show their “sincerity and commitment” in pursuing “genuine and meaningful” peace negotiations.
[READ: Duterte officially ends peace talks with Reds]
Sison, however, said Duterte was “not interested” in serious peace talks.
“He has issued proclamations and executive orders in order to terminate peace negotiations and further render them impossible during his rule,” the communist leader stressed.
“What he wants is the impossible, which is the surrender of the revolutionary movement of the people,” he added.
In his statement, Sison also told Filipinos that things will not get any better for 2019 as the government will be imposing heavier taxes, making the prices of basic goods and services to soar further.
Also within this year, the Duterte administration, he added, “will further inflict grave social and economic suffering on the people and unleash mass murder and other human rights violations” in an attempt to “destroy” the armed revolutionary movement and “intimidate” the public.
Speaking before the soldiers of the 10th Infantry Division in Mawab, Compostela Valley last month, the President told the troops to “destroy” the CPP as well as its legal fronts, adding that the country can obtain law and order if the rebels were eliminated.
“Unless we are able to destroy every one of them, ang ating mga anak o apo ninyo ganun pa rin ang haharapin (our children and grandchildren will face the same problems),” he said.
“And many of them will be soldiers and many of them will die without seeing the outcome of what would eventually be the Republic of the Philippines,” he added.
The National Union of People’s Lawyers (NUPL), however, slammed Duterte’s order, saying that such direction to the military “puts the parliamentary and legal struggles of the Filipino people and state security forces in the dangerous crossroad.”
It added that those who are “maliciously suspected” of being one of the CPP’s legal fronts may become targets of the government’s “lethal actions.”