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"Just like any other legal agreement, prior consultation is required before any decision to amend or in this case, terminate is implemented," Angara said.

"We appeal to our good Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana to reconsider his decision and sit down with the officials of UP to come up with solutions to ensuring peace and security in our nation, which I am sure is an aspiration shared by both sides," he added.

Senator Risa Hontiveros said that if the government was really determined to stop communism, it should be going after those invading the West Philippine Sea. Hontiveros was referring to China. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), in a statement, said the government aims to sow terror and fear among the public, particularly among the Lumad students staying in UP campuses after leaving their homes in 2017 due to the alleged harassment of state forces.

"It is an attack against the UP community which has squarely opposed the authoritarianism of the Duterte

It wants to make the university bow before the tyrant," the CPP said.

"The clear aim of this move is to further unrestrain the military and police by undermining academic freedom and freedom of expression enjoyed by university students and faculty," it added. It said the termination of the agreement will kill the science and liberal thinking in UP. The CPP urged not only the UP community but the entire Filipino people as well to defend the agreement.

"The UP students, especially, must take the cudgels of defending the university by going beyond online solidarity and converging on campus in their numbers to manifest their determination to defend their freedoms which have been won through struggle by past generations of students," it said.

"Together with university professors and personnel, they must show their unity, manifest their indignation, and demonstrate their power to frustrate the AFP'S fascist schemes," the group added./sunstar Philippines