BY DELFIN T. MALLARI, JR. (DTM) OF PHILIPPINE DAILY INQUIRER ON ¨ANTI-TERRORIST¨PROCLAMATION OF DUTERTE

DTM: The CPP and the NPA are not yet officially ¨terrorist group¨. There is still a court hearing. Do you think the CPP and NPA will participate in the court hearing?

JMS: I do not think that the CPP and NPA or their representatives will present themselves to any court of the big comprador-landlord state represented by Duterte. Most appropriate and most likely would be for the CPP and the NDFP issuing their respective proclamations exposing, condemning and holding Duterte and his fascist ruling clique responsible for gross and systematic acts of terrorism.

With Duterte´s proclamation, he and his fascist gang will be able to designate just any person or organization as a terrorist and extort from corporations and businessmen under the threat of designating them as terrorists or grab their businesses by designating them as terrorist by accusing them falsely of financing terrorism. Duterte has learned a lot from Marcos´ playbook and is even trying to improve on it.

DTM; Could this indicate that he left a small room for possible resumption of the peace talks?

JMS: Duterte has completely shut down the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations. He is crazy enough to be happy going down in history as the butcher of the Filipino people. His ambition is to become the despot of death and destruction. It is easier to oust Duterte from power than to resume peace negotiations with a regime under him. The NDFP is always willing to negotiate peace witth the GRP but GRP must first get rid of its brutal, corrupt and puppet president, who has already publicly admitted being an Amboy and fascist.

MALLARI: How about the non-inclusion of the NDFP? How do you read that?

JMS: The non-inclusion of NDFP is obviously motivated by a fear that the NDFP would make strong legal representations because of its established record of peace negotiations with the GRP. So, the proclamation targets CPP and NPA as ¨terrorist¨ because the framers of the proclamation are sure that they (CPP and NPA) would not present themselves or their representatives before any reactionary court of the big comprador-landlord state and would be the subject of an adverse ruling by that court. Why should they present themselves? The CPP leads the people´s democratic government and the NPA is the weapon of this government, with its own people´s courts.