By Erik Espina
“ITONG NDF because I used to be friends with the NDF. I was crossing the ideological borders before. Ako ‘yung nakakapasok sa territory and we were friends really. But times have changed because God placed me here and I take care of the Republic. Sabi nila doon ‘bully’ daw ako, T******* pala kayo, talagang bully ako. P*****I**. Talagang bully ako especially to the enemies of the State, talagang bully ako.”
PRRD State of the Nation July 24, 2017
President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, is crossing the ideological divide to portent a glimmer of peace in an insurgency roughly spanning five decades, claiming too many lives for our soldiers, loss of property and investments in the multi-billions of pesos, in the re-echo of wailing mothers and orphans over previous mandated government efforts to bring an intractable enemy into the fold of law and order.
While leftist fronts are on overdrive to instinctively drum-up resumption of every peace talk for the advantage of their armed components, the parameters set by the President puts them at bay, as essential pre-conditions evaluating the sincerity of an errant turned terroristic group:
1) Communists declare a unilateral ceasefire;
2) Halt extortion activities;
3) Stop attacking/burning private property, plus a most welcome development of our government hosting/spending for talks on Philippine soil. A sovereign country finally taking the rebellion by the horns with the red-line clearly set by the president.
Expect a locking of horns, not if, but when the CPP-NPA-NDF is unwilling to accept said conditions. The punch-line of this insurrection being an unfortunate editorial of Filipinos fighting Filipinos no longer holds water, as the cataclysm of a coalition government with totalitarian thinking totally contravenes the very warrior history of Filipinos defending libertarian values and trespasses on our democratic way of life under a Republican government.
This is a strategic testing of water cleverly putting the onus, nay the blame, for the predictable failure of proposed peace talks at the double-tongued terrorists who has lost their right to be regarded as Filipinos. Blind acolytes fomenting an alien ideological and violent caste on their own people.
