{"id":139883,"date":"2017-12-18T00:50:53","date_gmt":"2017-12-18T05:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=139883"},"modified":"2017-12-18T00:50:53","modified_gmt":"2017-12-18T05:50:53","slug":"palace-insists-on-breaking-military-tradition-no-holiday-truce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/18\/palace-insists-on-breaking-military-tradition-no-holiday-truce\/","title":{"rendered":"Palace insists on breaking military tradition, no holiday truce"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE:<\/a>
FILE: Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque (PCOO PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Malaca\u00f1ang maintained its stand on not declaring a suspension of military operations (SOMO) with the recently-declared terrorists Communist Party of the Philippines\u2019 New People\u2019s Army (CPP-NPA) over the Christmas holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur defenders would not stand down as there has been call on the other side to launch offensives against state forces,\u201d Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement on Sunday.<\/p>\n

A SOMO during the yuletide season is a tradition which the rebels reciprocate as well. During its declaration, government forces are not involved in offensive operations but only on defensive ones in case of attacks.<\/p>\n

According to Roque, CPP-NPA is \u201cnotorious for conducting treacherous attacks\u201d in spite of a unilateral ceasefire in the past that.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeclaring a SOMO now is not to the nation\u2019s best interest as it would only expose our defenders to enemy attacks and embolden them to commit more atrocities, especially during their anniversary,\u201d the Spokesman further said.<\/p>\n

Though, he said that the government is still open to other possibilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we do not discount possibilities that there may be circumstances that may arise for government to reconsider its present position,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, an interview by DZMM with Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar on Sunday said that this should be in line with the Department of National Defense (DND).<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year, we declare a ceasefire during the Christmas season. And this Christmas season, the recommendation of the Department of National Defense is there would be no ceasefire. Whatever was recommended by Secretary [Delfin] Lorenzana to the President, we will follow that,\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Lorenzana mirrored the same decision, saying that they \u201ccan always break a tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I will not [recommend a SOMO]. Because there was an order by their commanders to intensify operations against us. So kung mag<\/em>-SOMO kami<\/em> (if we have a SOMO), we will stand down and they will attack us again,\u201d he said on December 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Malaca\u00f1ang maintained its stand on not declaring a suspension of military operations (SOMO) with the recently-declared terrorists Communist Party of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":136305,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[11150,12748,15359,978,11266,3592,39353,37166],"class_list":["post-139883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-communist-party-of-the-philippines","tag-delfin-lorenzana","tag-harry-roque","tag-malacanang","tag-martin-andanar","tag-new-peoples-army","tag-somo","tag-suspension-of-military-operations","mauthors-bea-kirstein-t-manalaysay","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}