PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday reiterated that communist rebels must stop extortion activities if they want peace negotiations to resume.
Duterte said he was not keen on resuming talks with the communists unless the rebels stop collecting revolutionary taxes.
"They call it revolutionary tax. Actually, it’s extortion. That’s why we’re in a battle. We will not allow it. I refuse now to resume the talks with them until they stop extortion,” the President said in an interview at Camp Bahian in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon.
“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,” he added.
He first set this condition and three others in April, shortly before the 4th round of peace negotiations.
The 5th round of talks, scheduled for May 27 to June 1, was called off after the government panel refused to participate as a reaction to the rebels' declaration of intensified offensives under a martial law regime in Mindanao.
Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao on May 23, shortly after fighting erupted between government troops and the Maute terrorist group in Marawi City, Lanao del Sur.
The 5th round of formal talks is targeted to resume in August. Representatives of the government panel and the National Democratic Front, political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines, are scheduled to meet in the third or last week of July to discuss planned socio-economic reforms and unilateral ceasefire.
The government announced it would halt offensives against the rebels in Mindanao to reciprocate the declaration of the New People's Army (NPA), the communists' armed wing, that it was suspending attacks to allow government troops to focus on ending the Marawi siege.
Duterte, however, decried the NPA attacks in various parts of southern Philippines, which he said have distracted the troops.
"Our focus now here in Marawi is distracted. I don’t understand if the NPA really wants to befriend us,” he said. “I do not want to continue the fight. It has been there for 50 years. I suppose that everybody’s tired (of) killing people for 50 years,” he added. (VoxPop Philippines)
