By Zea C. Capistrano
DAVAO CITY – President Duterte continued his anti-Joma Sison tirades as he challenged his former professor and the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines to a gunfight Friday.
Duterte said the gunfight will once and for all end the decades-long communist insurgency in the country which has claimed thousands of lives.
“Sison sige daldal. P*tang in*, umuwi ka dito aron barilan tayong dalawa para tapos na itong gulo. Winner take all tayo,” Duterte said during a Christmas party hosted by Malacañang for the media here.
Duterte’s latest denunciation of Sison came weeks after he signed a proclamation ending the peace negotiations with the communists.
Presidential Proclamation No. 360 stated that “the NDF-CPP-NPA failed to show its sincerity and commitment in pursuing genuine and meaningful peace negotiations as it engaged in acts of violence and hostilities, endangering the lives and properties of innocent people.”
Aside from this, Duterte also signed Proclamation No. 374 declaring the CPP-NPA as a terrorist organization.
The Department of Justice has asked the court to legally declare the CPP and its armed wing, the NPA, as terrorist groups.
Sison has described Duterte as the “No. 1 terrorist and butcher of the Filipino people” after condemning the move to extend martial law in Mindanao for another year.
Sison claimed that “the gross and systematic violation of human rights in Mindanao will certainly escalate” under the extended martial law.