JOMA SET FOR NEXT ROUND OF TALKS

LUCENA CITY— Utrecht-based Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison on Sunday said he was physically fit and ready for another rigorous round of peace talks.

“I’m now OK. My health is not an issue or news matter. Look at me, I’m now busy granting interviews and issuing statements. I’m also busy preparing for the fourth round of the formal talks,” Sison said in an online interview.

Sison’s Facebook photos showed him in the company of his family before his discharge from confinement at the Utrecht Medical Center.

“I got skin deep inflammations because of decreased auto-immunity defense during winter in Europe,” the 77-yearold icon of communist insurgents explained.

The government and the CPP’s political arm, National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), are set to resume peace talks in The Netherlands on April 2-6.

On Saturday, the CPP announced it was preparing to declare another unilateral ceasefire not later than March 31.

But President Duterte was noncommittal to reciprocate with a similar truce order. Mr. Duterte said he would first consult his national security advisers as well as the military and police.

Sison declined to comment on the President’s decision.

“Let’s just wait for what he really wants. I don’t want to speculate,” Sison said when asked for his reaction to Mr. Duterte’s decision.

But Sison stressed the need for reciprocal unilateral ceasefire declarations before March 31. He said the declaration of ceasefires was mutually agreed upon during the back-channel talks by the government and NDFP panels in Rome, Italy, on March 10-11.

“This (mutual unilateral ceasefires) was stated in the March 11 agreement during the back-channel talks,” he explained.

Sison gave the success of the peace talks under the Duterte administration a “50-50 chance.”

He said the fate and direction of the peace talks would be ascertained after a year of the Duterte administration.

He noted how the peace negotiations under the eight months of the Duterte administration were able to move on and achieve some dramatic progress.

“Both parties will try our best to finish the Caser (Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms) and the forging of the bilateral ceasefire agreement before the end of 2017. And in 2018, it is possible that the NDFP will be the cofounder of the Duterte administration in putting up the Federal Republic of the Philippines,” Sison said.

But Sison claimed there were “pro-US peace spoilers” among some members of the Duterte Cabinet, which he did not identify, who wanted to derail the peace negotiation.

“If they will succeed in sabotaging the peace talks, Duterte will lose his major saving grace or redeeming points,” Sison said.