No assassination plot vs Sison, Duterte assures

MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday, May 30, reassured Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison that he will be safe and secure when he comes home for the peace negotiations.

"I don't know about Sison but I'm ready to give him the privilege of coming home. He does not have to worry about his safety. I may call on, maybe members of this command, to protect him," Duterte said at the Presidential Security Group's change of command rites.

"If you come home, do not worry about being killed. I will not do that," he added.

Duterte made the reassurance six days after he said he would escort Sison out of the country if the talks fail and kill him if he returns.

Sison has been in selfexile in the Netherlands since 1987.

Duterte, in his latest speech, said betraying Sison by killing him the way former senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated never entered his mind.

Aquino was killed at the then Manila International Aiport on August 21, 1983, just minutes after he exited the plane that brought him home from exile. The assassination triggered nationwide protests that eventually led to the 1986 People's Revolution.

Duterte assured that Sison can leave the country "unhampered, unfet- tered, [and] unbridled" if the government and the communists fail to come up with a peace pact.

"I will tell him, 'Please, if it's unsuccessful, please go home.' I will bring him to the airport. There will be no Aquino style -- I will not kill him or shoot him in the back. It's not my [style]," the President said.

"What I said, not to take offense, I said, 'If it's not successful, then I will guarantee that he can

go out of the country unhampered, unfettered, unbridled,'" he added.

The President also maintained that he merely hopes that the communists would "earnestly" and "sincerely" negotiate with his government.

Reacting to Duterte's threat to kill him, Sison had shrugged off the former's "strong" words that merely implied the President's dedication to "resume the peace negotiations rather than to block them."

The government peace panel and the CPP's political wing, the National Democratic Front, are expected to to sign an interim peace agreement in June to pave the way for the resumption of formal peace talks. Ruth Abbey Gita/SunStar Philippines