{"id":140580,"date":"2017-12-20T00:06:32","date_gmt":"2017-12-20T05:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=140580"},"modified":"2017-12-20T00:06:32","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T05:06:32","slug":"duterte-declares-holiday-truce-with-reds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2017\/12\/20\/duterte-declares-holiday-truce-with-reds\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte declares holiday truce with Reds"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"President<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (ALBERT ALCAIN\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Contrary to previous statements and recommendations by some of his Cabinet members, President Rodrigo Duterte announced a suspension of military operations (SOMO) for the holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe President announced last night a suspension of military operations (SOMO) from December 24, 2017 to January 2, 2018,\u201d Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said in a statement.<\/p>\n

According to Roque, the Christmas season \u2018holds a special place in the hearts of the countrymen\u2019 and it would be best to stand together as one nation in aspiring for peace during the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis unilateral ceasefire would lessen the apprehension of the public this Christmas season. We expect that the CPP-NPA-NDFP (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People\u2019s Army- National Democratic Front of the Philippines) would do a similar gesture of goodwill,\u201d he further said.<\/p>\n

A few days ago, Malaca\u00f1ang in a statement said that the government is maintaining its stand on not declaring a SOMO, in which government forces are not involved in offensive operations but only for defensive ones in case of attacks.<\/p>\n

(Read: Palace insists on breaking military tradition, no holiday truce<\/a>)<\/p>\n

It has been a tradition to declare a SOMO during the yuletide holidays, which is reciprocated by the side of the rebels as well.<\/p>\n

Roque had said that declaring\u00a0one would only expose \u2018our defenders to enemy attacks and embolden them to commit more atrocities.\u2019<\/p>\n

He did say however that they are not closing their doors on other possibilities.<\/p>\n

Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, earlier this month, said that he will not recommend a SOMO to maintain the government forces\u2019 stance and operations against the recently-declared terrorist group.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I will not [recommend a SOMO]. Because there was an order by their commanders to intensify operations against us. So\u00a0kung mag<\/em>-SOMO\u00a0kami<\/em>\u00a0(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":"

Contrary to previous statements and recommendations by some of his Cabinet members, President Rodrigo Duterte announced a suspension of military …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":140576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,16,95],"tags":[8790,39783,12748,15359,978,2444,39353,37166],"class_list":["post-140580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-christmas","tag-communist-party-of-the-philippines-new-peoples-army-national-democratic-front-of-the-philippines","tag-delfin-lorenzana","tag-harry-roque","tag-malacanang","tag-rodrigo-duterte","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\/140580","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=140580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}