MANILA, Philippines — Peace negotiations between the government and the communists would only resume if the New People’s Army stop their extortion activities, President Rodrigo Duterte said Wednesday.
Duterte said the “revolutionary tax” being demanded by the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, is just another term for extortion.
“I refuse now to resume the talks with them (communists) until they stop extortion. People will say they pay taxes and yet they do not receive protection and they are being extorted by the NPA,” the president told reporters in Malaybalay, Bukidnon.
Fidel Agcaoili, chief negotiator for the rebels, said justified the collection of so-called revolutionary taxes in June 2016.
“You have to understand that the revolutionary movement has organs of political power operating in the countryside,” Agcaoili said in a press conference at the Ateneo de Davao last year.
“They have the right. Any state has the right to impose taxes on any form of business that operates within its own territory,” he said.
“The money that goes to the [National Democratic Front of the Philippines]does not go to the pockets (of its leaders) unlike the present government but to efforts to help the community like establishing school cooperatives, and medical services,” he said.
Duterte insisted that he does not want to fight with the rebels, who have has been waging an armed struggle against the government since 1969.
“I suppose that everybody’s tired killing people for 50 years. But if they want it another 50 years, we in the government cannot do anything,” he said.
“It’s plain extortion. And if they want to continue, to resume the talks, one of the things that I would demand would really be that they stop the extortion activities.”
Last May, the government deferred the fifth round of peace talks after the Communist Party of the Philippines had directed the NPA to carry out more attacks against government forces enforcing martial law in Mindanao.
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), which represents the communists in the talks, then directed the NPA to refrain from attacking soldiers and police in Mindanao so they can focus on the campaign against jihadists. The chairman of the government peace panel welcomed the move and said that operations against the NPA would also be paused.
Despite the pronouncement, military and communist forces engaged in skirmishes in parts of Visayas and Mindanao.
Last Tuesday, government chief negotiator Silvestre Bello III, also the Labor secretary, said the government and the communists may resume peace negotiations in the second or third week of August.
He said the two panels would hold an informal meeting somewhere in Asia this month to discuss an interim ceasefire and socioeconomic reforms.
Duterte, who has called himself a socialist and leftist, restarted peace talks with the CPP-NPA-NDF in 2016, three years after talks were shelved during the Aquino administration.