Home > Philippines
Duterte May Free Jailed Communist Rebels – Aide
DUTERTE WANTS TO TALK PEACE – Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte (in striped shirt), the presumptive president-elect, is open to releasing jailed communist rebels in his bid to restart stalled peace negotiations and end the decades-old insurgency problem. He is shown chatting with Elizalde Cañete, also known as ‘Ka Yancy,’ commander of the New People’s Army Pulang Bagani Battalion, in this photo taken last April 25 when the rebel group released captured police officers to him.
May 12th, 2016 | 09:00 AM | 3757 views
MANILA, PHILIPPINES
Presumptive president-elect Rodrigo Duterte may release jailed communist rebels in an effort to restart peace talks aimed at ending a decades-old insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, an aide said Tuesday.
The aide said Duterte, set to be sworn into office on June 30 after a landslide election victory on Monday, signalled his readiness to discuss the release of a number of imprisoned rebels, a key factor in the breakdown of peace negotiations three years ago.
Incumbent President Aquino ended talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in 2013 over the rebels’ demand for the unconditional release of their detained comrades that his government was unwilling to grant.
Duterte spokesman Peter Lavina said the president-elect would consider allowing exiled communist leaders to return for the talks, and review the status of “political prisoners”.
Laviña suggested the new government would not be averse to releasing detained rebels so they could take part in the talks, and allow ailing ones get treatment outside of prison.
“It is important to release political prisoners suffering from ailments,” Laviña said.
Duterte, a hardline mayor accused of running vigilante death squads that have killed more than a thousand crime suspects in Davao, is a friend of Netherlands-based Jose Maria Sison, who set up the communist party in 1968.
Last month during the election campaign Duterte won the release of five Davao policemen and a civilian taken hostage by the rebels’ New People’s Army guerrillas a week earlier.
At the start of the campaign in February, Sison had said that the rebels were pleased all the would-be Aquino successors backed peace talks.
Sison claimed Duterte, his student in a political science subject at a Manila university in the 1960s, would consider a “coalition” as long as the communists disarmed.
Running for almost half a century, the communist insurgency has claimed 30,000 lives, according to military estimates.
The rebels’ strength has dwindled to less than 4,000 fighters from a peak of more than 26,000 in the late 1980s, according to the military.
Transition team
Meanwhile, Malacañang said that with the emergence of the victor in the hotly contested presidential elections, the transfer of power will begin very soon.
President Aquino finally reached out to Duterte, and pledged the “smoothest transition possible” to the next administration.
The President contacted the camp of Duterte and informed them that Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa would be assigned to lead the team that will ensure the transition would proceed without glitches.
“I talked to Mr. Bong Go yesterday (last Tuesday) to relay to Mayor Duterte that an Administrative Order (AO) is being drafted designating the Executive Secretary as head of the transition team,” Aquino said in a statement. Go is the executive assistant of Davao City Mayor Duterte.
“I further offered that the Cabinet stands ready to brief his team on any and all of their concerns. Lastly, we are committed to effecting the smoothest transition possible,” Aquino added.
Duterte, the 71-year-old candidate known his profanity-laced speeches, is the presumptive winner of the presidential elections with more than 15 million votes cast in his favor based on partial and unofficial count.
Duterte’s so called transition team, composed of campaign manager Leoncio Evasco, spokesman Peter Laviña, Atty Salvador Medialdea, finance chief and businessman Carlos G, Dominguez, and personal assistant Christopher Lawrence T. Go, met at the Marco Polo Hotel to discuss details of his ascension to office.
The team will oversee the transition process, from preparing for his inauguration, drafting of policies, vetting candidates of his executive family to paving the way for his smooth transfer to the Palace.
These are the same people who have been with Duterte since he began campaigning for the presidency, most of them his classmates in high school in Davao.
Medialdea, a personal lawyer, was the one who filed Duterte’s Certificate of Candidacy for president.
Dominguez, who served as Agriculture secretary in the Corazon Aquino Cabinet, was a high school classmate of Duterte. He said they used to call Duterte, not Rody or Digong, but ‘Duts.’
Dominguez was also a board member of the then-Republic Planters Bank and president of Philippine Airlines before it was bought by businessman Lucio Tan. (With reports from Genalyn D. Kabiling and Armin Amio)
Source:
courtesy of MANILA BULLETIN
by Agence France-Presse
If you have any stories or news that you would like to share with the global online community, please feel free to share it with us by contacting us directly at [email protected]