Duterte has no plans to return to negotiations with NDF

February 13, 2017

The Duterte administration has no plan to go back to the negotiating table despite calls by different groups including the National Democratic Front, a Palace official said on Monday.

In a radio interview Monday, Presidential Communications Office Secretary Martin Andanar stressed that President Rodrigo Duterte had walked the extra mile.

"(A)s far as the negotiation with the CPP-NPA-NDF (Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army) is concerned, there's none, that's finished," he said when asked of the possibility of continuing peace talks.

After Duterte declared the government's termination of the peace process, he noted the earlier statement of the president encouraging the rebels to go down from the mountains and surrender and "he is willing to give them a new life, they will be assisted."

Andanar reiterated Duterte decided to withdraw from the peace talks because of the gruesome killings of some soldiers allegedly by the rebels.

Under the Duterte government, peace negotiation resumed in August last year after it bogged down in 2011 under the Aquino administration.

But after three rounds of talks under the current government, Duterte withdrew from the negotiation following the death of at least six soldiers due to the alleged ambuscades launched by the rebels. Celerina Monte/DMS