Assures them of safe passage
(Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday, April 13, reiterated his invitation for Communist leaders abroad to come home, assuring them of safe passage.
“I will give them my personal and official guarantee na during the two months na punta sila dito, they will not be arrested, they will not be molested, they will not be whatever, (be caused) any inconvenience,” he said in his speech upon his arrival from Hong Kong at the Davao International Airport.
According to the President, he would even send “assistance” to their camps, and shoulder the costs of their accommodation and food.
“If I want peace, I must invest in peace,” he said.
He said before peace talks could resume, however, there should be a ceasefire, and Communist rebels should be confined to their camps.
He said there should also be “no taxation, no atrocities, nothing.”
Peace Secretary Jesus Dureza has said these were not “preconditions,” but merely elements to an “enabling environment.”
“Just come here as a plain citizen. You are protected by our policy of rapprochement with an open heart,” he said.
“Maybe in the fullness of God’s time, we may have a concrete and substantial peace agreement to sign,” he added.
President Duterte called off peace talks with the Communist rebels last year, following what he said were their atrocities that include the killing of a baby.
Only recently though, he ordered government officials to “work on” the resumption of peace talks, a statement Communist Party of the Philippines founder Joma Sison welcomed.
Sison, however, said there should be “no preconditions” to the peace talks.
