Manila offers olive branch to Filipino rebels
President declares unilateral ceasefire in attempt to bring end to decades-long conflict
MANILA, PHILIPPINES— Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared a unilateral ceasefire with communist guerrillas effective immediately Monday and asked the rebels to do the same to end decades of deadly fighting and foster the resumption of peace talks.
In his first state of the nation address before Congress, Duterte said he wanted a “permanent and lasting peace” before the end of his six-year term, which commenced on June 30. The ex-city mayor, who built a name for his tough, crime-busting style, also focused on his battle against illegal drugs, threatening drug dealers anew with death.
Addressing the New People’s Army guerrillas, Duterte said: “Let us end these decades of ambuscades and skirmishes. We are going nowhere and it is getting bloodier by the day.
“Let me make this appeal to you,” he said. “If we cannot as yet love one another, then in God’s name, let us not hate each other too much.”
The communist guerrillas welcomed Duterte’s move and said they would wait for a copy of his truce order before “reciprocating positively.”
“We share his desire to achieve a just and lasting peace,” chief rebel negotiator Luis Jalandoni told the Associated Press by telephone from the Dutch city of Utrecht, where he and other rebel leaders have been in self-exile for years.
The decades-long communist insurgency, one of Asia’s longest, has left about 150,000 combatants and civilians dead since it broke out in the late 1960s. It has also stalled economic development, especially in the countryside, where the Maoist insurgents have had an active pres- ence. Under Duterte’s predecessor, Benigno Aquino III, peace negotiations with the communists that were brokered by Norway stalled over the government’s rejection of a rebel demand for the release of captured insurgents.
But Duterte, 71, who describes himself as a socialist, had given concessions to the rebels and designated left-wing activists to at least two cabinet posts.
The rebels have also praised Duterte’s critical stance on the security policy of the United States, which has blacklisted the communist insurgents as terrorists for their bloody attacks, including an ambush that killed a U.S. army colonel near Manila in 1989.
Duterte also said his administration was ready to pursue peace talks with Muslim guerrillas in the country’s south.
“Let me say this, all of us want peace,” Duterte said. “Not the peace of the dead, but the peace of the living.”
While extending the hand of peace to the Muslim insurgents, Duterte had a more hard-line stance on Abu Sayyaf extremists, who have been blamed for local and cross-border kidnappings of Malaysians and Indonesians in the south.
The military’s might, he said, “will be applied to crush these criminals, who operate under the guise of religious fervour.”
Duterte’s warning to drug dealers and rogue officials and policemen was harsh.
“We will not stop until the last drug lord, the last financier and the last pusher have surrendered or been put behind bars or below the ground if they so wish,” he said, drawing applause.
Since Duterte rose to the presidency, nearly 300 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed in reported gun battles with police and in still-unexplained deaths while more than129,750 others have been arrested.