Philippines’ Duterte seeks truce with leftist rebels

By Hader Glang

ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines (AA) – The Philippines’ incoming chief government negotiator announced Tuesday that President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s team is seeking to declare a ceasefire with the country’s communist insurgency after formal peace talks resume.

“After we resume talks formally, we [incoming government] declare ceasefire, then they [communist groups] declare ceasefire then we form the committees for implementation," GMA News quoted Silvestre Bello III as telling reporters in southern Davao City.

Since his landslide victory in the May 9 election, Duterte -- who served as mayor of Davao City for 22 years -- has made overtures toward the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), whose armed wing the New People’s Army (NPA) has been waging a decades-long guerrilla war against the government.

Earlier this month, Bello accompanied incoming presidential peace adviser Jesus Dureza during a visit to Norway to meet with the CCP’s exiled founder Jose Maria Sison and leading figures of the National Democratic Front (NDF), the CPP’s political wing.

"I'm very happy to tell you that results were very positive," Bello said Tuesday of the exploratory talks.

He expressed his expectation that formal peace talks could start during the third week of July, before Duterte -- set to be inaugurated June 30 -- delivers his first State of the Nation Address on July 25.

Bello added that during the meetings in Oslo, the sides had agreed to finalize the talks within Duterte’s first year in office.

"What's the feasible period... it was already discussed it should be within nine to 12 months," he said.

Negotiations with the CPP-NDF had collapsed in 2004 after the communists withdrew from the negotiating table on account of the renewed inclusion of Sison and the NPA on the United States terrorist list.

Sison -- Duterte’s former professor at a Manila university -- has been in exile in the Netherlands since the failure of 1987 peace talks.

In 2014, negotiations again failed because outgoing President Benigno Aquino III turned down the rebels' demand to release detained comrades -- accusing the rebels of insincerity in efforts to achieve a political settlement.

In his peace overtures, Duterte has said that he will release all political prisoners if party leaders return from exile and sit down for negotiations. He also offered the CPP posts in his new government to smooth the way.

Since March 1969, the NPA has been waging one of Asia’s longest running insurgencies in the country, which -- according to the military -- has claimed more than 3,000 lives over the past eight years.

The military estimates that the number of NPA members has dropped from a peak of 26,000 in the 1980s to less than 4,000.