Duterte crazy – Joma
“HE is crazy.”
This was how exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria “Joma” Sison described President Rodrigo Duterte after the country’s leader threatened to slap him.
“Duterte is crazy. A few days ago, he wanted to meet me for conversation. Now, he says he wants to meet me so that he can slap me. His behavior is practically insane,” Sison said in a statement on Wednesday.
The President made the pronouncement against Sison during the launch of an agricultural project for wounded soldiers in Compostela Valley on Monday.
Last week, Duterte said he was open to have a one-on-one conversation with Sison in the Philippines, a move welcomed by the CPP leader, saying it might be his first time to come to the Philippines after years of self-exile for more than 30 years with his wife in The Netherlands.
After the Palace issued a statement saying peace talks with the communists are “closed,” Sison rebutted, also describing Palace spokesman Harry Roque as the “parrot” of Duterte and the President as not sincere in his offer for a sit-down talk.
Sison then hit Duterte for being “determined” not to pursue the peace talks with the communist rebels.
“He is so determined against peace negotiations because he thinks that it suffices for him to use all-out war policy, Oplan Kapayapaan, martial law, Con-Ass [Constituent Assembly) and Cha-cha [Charter change] to entrench his fascist dictatorship,”he said.
In July last year, the Philippine government decided to stop the peace talks with the National Democratic Front, the political arm of the CPP, over attacks of its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA), on soldiers of the Presidential Security Group in Arakan, North Cotabato.
Prior to the Arakan incident, Sison had released statements countering the Duterte administration and its allies over killings of alleged drug suspects by the Philippine National Police, impeachment charges against Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno, rejection of Judy Taguiwalo and Rafael Mariano as Social Welfare secretary and Agrarian Reform secretary, respectively, and declaration and extension of martial law in Mindanao.