(Eagle News)–Davao Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio on Friday asked her father, President Rodrigo Duterte, to reconsider his plan to resume peace talks with the communist rebels.
“If talks are revived, we are most certain that the NPAs (New People’s Army) will continue to terrorize government forces and civilians,” the Davao mayor said in a statement.
For this, Duterte-Carpio cited the torching of heavy equipment vehicles by alleged NPA members during the long holiday, and the death of fish vendor Larry Buenafe when the communist rebels supposedly attacked Lapanday Food Corporation last year.
“Let us not forget Larry’s two very young children now growing without a father – and the many other orphaned children of other hapless, mostly poor civilians,” she said.
Duterte-Carpio said she feared the rebels would “discharge offensives and unabated destruction, while recruitment of minors, farmers, Lumad, workers, and students would continue courtesy of its legal fronts.”
She said the Reds could not be trusted as they have the “proclivity to sow hate, violence and extremism.”
The Davao mayor ordered the conduct of localized peace talks with the communist rebels last year, but in December, President Duterte called off peace talks.
He recently ordered government officials however to “work on the resumption” of peace talks, a statement Communist Party of the Philippines founder Joma Sison welcomed.
Sison said, however, that the resumption of peace talks should not be subjected to preconditions.