Duterte says military, cops to kill him if he’d agree with Reds’ coalition gov’t

November 29, 2017

President Rodrigo Duterte has said state security forces would kill him if he gives in to the coalition government being pushed by the communist rebels.

Duterte said when he was studying the workshop papers and the official proceedings of the peace talks with the National Democratic Front in the Netherlands, the leftist group was up for a coalition government.

"I would sum up something like a coalition government. I said, I cannot give what I do not own because that is sovereignty. And the law requires, the Constitution, that if you want to hold the sovereignty of a nation, you must be elected by the people," Duterte said in a speech in a birthday celebration of one of his friends in Cavite province on Tuesday night.

He said even if the Maoist rebels would be asking for a small part in running the government, he could not give it.

"(T)hat if you are using it to get what you have, the military as well as the police will kill me. If there is something which they cannot accept, may be that is one issue, corruption, also you tinker with the integrity of this republic," he said.

Duterte reiterated that the problem with the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army-NDF has been there for five decades.

"But I have discontinued the peace talks...and if we have to go to war, we go to war," he said.

Duterte terminated the peace negotiations with the NDF, the political wing of CPP-NPA, due to the rebels' continued attacks against the government forces and extortion activities with the civilians. Celerina Monte/DMS