No more peace talks with Reds; ”there will always be time for reckoning” – Duterte

April 28, 2020

President Rodrigo Duterte for the nth time said that there would be no more peace talks with the Communist Party of the Philippine-New People's Army-National Democratic Front.

In a taped televised message on Monday night, Duterte said there would "always be a time for reckoning" following the NPA attacks, resulting in the death and injury of some soldiers, whom he said were just doing "humanitarian missions" amid the coronavirus disease pandemic.

"Again, it is a sad thing to know that the soldiers were killed while even doing the most honorable task of accompanying the government workers delivering money and the food. I am so sad about this development but there will always be a time for reckoning," he said.

"There is no more peace talks to talk about. I am not and will never be ready for any round of talks because simply the NPA, the Communist Party of the Philippines, has no respect either for their spoken words or in their deeds of killing soldiers who are on humanitarian missions," the President added.

Two soldiers were killed and three others were wounded in an NPA attack during the distribution of relief goods in Aurora province recently.

The attack came while the Maoist group has extended its unilateral ceasefire until April 30 amid the coronavirus crisis.

Duterte also earlier threatened to declare martial law if the communist rebels would continue with their atrocities. 

The President first formally terminated the peace talks in late 2017 as he also declared the CPP-NPA as terrorist organizations.

But since then, every now and then, he expressed his willingness to resume again the peace talks.

He changed his tune, however, whenever the NPA attacks the government forces. Celerina Monte/DMS