Philippine president gives rebels deadline to declare truce

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has withdrawn a unilateral ceasefire with communist rebels after his ultimatum for the group to reciprocate lapsed.

The military were “clearly on combat operation and not engaged in “civilian” activities, in direct violation to President Duterte’s ceasefire order”, he said.

Duterte said he would scuttle his cease-fire order, which he issued on Monday, if the New People’s Army guerrillas did not match with their own by 5pm on Saturday.

Duterte has been making peace overtures to the CPP’s political wing, the National Democratic Front (NDF), since he started to campaign for this year’s presidential election.

“I am ordering all security forces to be on high alert and continue to discharge their normal functions and mandate to neutralise all threats to national security, protect the citizens, enforce the laws and maintain peace”, he said.

On Thursday, he demanded an explanation from the CPP-NPA-NDF regarding the attack of the rebels on government militiamen in Davao del Norte, killing one of them and wounding four others.

The unilateral ceasefire, announced by Duterte in his State of the Nation Address on July 25, lasted for all of six days. “Give me an answer by tonight because tomorrow, I will cancel [the ceasefire]”, Duterte said. “It does not mean anything”, he added, saying the CPP was poised to announce a reciprocal truce at 8 p.m. yesterday but it was overtaken by Duterte’s statement.

“If you do not honor and you kill a single soldier. let’s just forget about this, let’s just fight”, Duterte said, in a message to the rebels.

Duterte personally condoled with the family of the slain militiaman at the headquarters of the 60th Infantry Batallion in Davao del Norte.

Both rebel leaders Sison and Jalandoni said that they still supported the upcoming talks, even as they called for the “immediate release” of some senior communist detainees.

Jalandoni acknowledged that one person was killed by the rebels during the incident, but said the man was a member of a government militia “notorious for carrying out human rights violations” against minority ethnic groups in Mindanao.

“Volatility, lack of prudence in something as sensitive and delicate as peace negotiations between two armed fighting sides – it’s hard to agree with people who are quick to judgment”, he said, referring to Duterte.

The peace negotiations will be held in Oslo, Norway.

Francisco also accused the military of “sabotaging” the peace process.

The recently-elected president had initially threatened to withdraw his ceasefire order by Friday, but the deadline was extended after the rebels promised to investigate the attack.