MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines on Wednesday cancelled talks with Maoist-led rebels due on the weekend in the Netherlands after guerrillas attacked a convoy of President Rodrigo Duterte's security men, killing a paramilitary guard and wounding six.

Duterte was not in the area on the southern island of Mindanao when the clash between the presidential guards and New People's Army (NPA) rebels erupted early on Wednesday.

But the incident was basis enough for peace adviser Jesus Dureza to call off informal, "back channel" talks with exiled leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines aimed at restarting a stalled peace process.

"The situation on the ground necessary to provide the desired enabling environment for the conduct of peace negotiations are still not present," Dureza said in a statement.

Maoist-led rebels have been waging a guerrilla war for nearly 50 years to overthrow the government.

The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people and stunted growth in poor but resource-rich rural regions.

The peace process, an important initiative of Duterte, has been fraught with breakdowns, with both sides abandoning unilateral ceasefires in February, blaming each other for launching attacks while talks were going on.

Duterte on Tuesday met his negotiators dealing with the communists, and told them not to agree to a bilateral ceasefire until the NPA ceased attacks on troops. He also called the political leadership to keep its fighters under control.

The clash at a checkpoint came a day after Duterte asked Congress to extend martial law until the end of the year to tackle rising Islamist militancy.

The Philippines has been beset by separate communist and Muslim insurgencies in various parts of the country for decades.

Communist and Muslim rebels both operate on Mindanao, stretching the military on multiple fronts on the island of 22 million people.

Government forces are battling to defeat Islamic State-inspired rebels who have occupied the heart of the island's Marawi City for 58 days, while operations continue on islands to the west of Mindanao against Abu Sayyaf rebels behind kidnappings and piracy.

Military chief Eduardo Ano said the Maoist rebels were exploiting the security crisis.

"That's why you are seeing now an increase in the intensity of encounters nationwide," he said, adding two marines were also killed by rebels on Palawan island.

Documents obtained by the army showed Maoist rebel leaders had ordered guerrillas to step up attacks after martial law was imposed in Mindanao on May 23, Ano said. </s> The Philippine government has frozen efforts to resume stalled peace talks with communist rebels following a series of attacks, officials said.

Government negotiators were supposed to hold back-channel talks with their communist rebel counterparts in the Netherlands at the weekend, but the meeting was scrapped after attacks earlier this week.

Three government troops were killed, and six soldiers who were part of the president's security group were wounded in the separate attacks, DPA news agency said.

"Everything is on hold until favourable conditions will be agreed upon by both parties," presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella told reporters on Friday.

On Thursday, President Rodrigo Duterte told soldiers in a visit to a military camp in besieged Marawi City, 800 kilometres south of Manila, that the communist rebels would be their next target after fighting armed groups linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

"After we finish off those fools there, we will re-orient our offensive against the New People's Army," he said, referring to the armed wing of the rebel group the Communist Party of the Philippines.

OPINION: Duterte's reality check in Mindanao

"I don't want to talk with them anymore," he added. "They have killed many of our soldiers, many of our police officers. Imagine, killing two soldiers while they were going to the market. That really angers me."

Duterte was referring to two unarmed soldiers who were shot dead while buying supplies at a public market in the town of Roxas in Palawan province, 510 kilometres south-west of Manila, on Wednesday.

The killing was suspected to have been in retaliation for the seizure of a communist rebel training camp a few weeks ago, the military said.

The Philippines has been beset by separate communist and Muslim-led insurgencies in various parts of the country for decades.

Communist fighters and rebels from Muslim armed groups both challenge government forces in parts of the country.

Also on Wednesday, Maoist fighters attacked a checkpoint on the Mindanao Island, killing a paramilitary guard officer and injuring five soldiers from the presidential guard.

READ MORE: Residents mourn battle-ridden Philippine city of Marawi

The clash at the checkpoint came a day after Duterte asked congress to extend martial law until the end of the year to tackle unrest by Islamist armed groups.

The violence highlights the challenge facing a military stretched on multiple fronts in Mindanao, an island of 22 million people.

Documents allegedly obtained by the army showed Maoist rebel leaders had ordered fighters to step up attacks after martial law was imposed in Mindanao on May 23, Ano said. </s> MOSCOW Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte late on Tuesday, TASS news agency cited the Kremlin as saying, instead of meeting on Thursday as originally planned.

Duterte on Tuesday declared martial law in southern Mindanao province after fighting raged in southern Marawi City between the army and militants linked to Islamic state.

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed. </s> Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte inspects firearms during his visit at the military camp in Marawi city, southern Philippines July 20, 2017. — Reuters picMANILA, July 20 — The Philippine government ordered the arrest yesterday of communist rebel leaders involved in peace talks, the day after a guerrilla ambush left five presidential bodyguards wounded in the latest escalation of the half century-long conflict.

The insurgents have been engaged in off-and-on peace talks with Manila to end one of the world’s longest insurgencies that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, since President Rodrigo Duterte was elected last year.

But the government suspended formal peace talks in May, and on Thursday chief government lawyer Jose Calida said guerrilla leaders who were let out of prison to take part in talks were now subject to arrest.

“The Solicitor General already instructed the... solicitors to ask the courts to cancel the bail bonds of the (rebel) consultants, order their arrests, and recommit them to their detention facilities,” Calida’s office said in a statement.

“The conditions (for their conditional release) provide that should the formal peace negotiations cease or fail, their bond shall be deemed automatically cancelled,” it added.

Duterte had freed more than a dozen rebel leaders so they could fly to Europe and serve as consultants to their peace negotiating team, made up mostly of exiled senior communist figures.

The talks were cancelled by the government due to deadly guerrilla attacks on security forces, with the two sides failing to agree to a ceasefire.

After yesterday’s attacks by the communists’ 4,000-member armed wing the New People’s Army—during which gunmen opened fire on two Presidential Security Group vehicles on the southern island of Mindanao—Manila called off a planned informal meeting, saying the situation on the ground was not conducive for peace talks.

“You can just imagine that if the president is on board that vehicle, he could have been assassinated,” military spokesman Colonel Edgard Arevalo told reporters Thursday.

The rebels said yesterday their armed attacks were in response to Duterte’s plan to extend his 60-day martial law proclamation to the end of the year for Mindanao, the southern third of the country where the rebellion is concentrated.

Arevalo said the rebels had killed two off-duty Marines in an ambush in another part of the country this week.

“Clearly the (rebels) have no intention to genuinely pursue peace negotiations but merely to buy time to consolidate to recruit and to beef up their ranks,” he added.

Duterte had said he needed a longer martial rule to defeat Islamist militants holed up in the city of Marawi in a near-two-month battle that has left more than 550 people dead. — AFP </s> MANILA (Reuters) - Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Sunday rejected a demand by Maoist-led rebels to free more prisoners as part of a ceasefire deal, saying he had made enough concessions and was willing to let peace talks collapse if necessary.

For decades the government and the communists' political arm, National Democratic Front, have held intermittent peace negotiations but without success. The release of political prisoners has proved a major stumbling block.

Before the resumption of peace negotiations in Oslo in August, four years after the collapse of the last attempt, Duterte let 22 rebel leaders out on bail, including two senior guerrilla commanders.

Last month, he also freed four elderly and sick prisoners on humanitarian grounds.

But rebel leaders immediately demanded the release of 130 more rebels, a call Duterte has ignored until now.

Since the rebellion erupted nearly five decades ago, it has killed about 40,000 people and stunted growth in resource-rich rural areas of the Philippines. The rebels' armed wing, New People's Army, is active in almost all but the Muslim majority provinces, and are particularly strong in the mining areas in the southern island of Mindanao.

"I wanted them to start the talks but they want me to free 130 more, so I told them, no, I cannot," Duterte told soldiers at an army base north of Manila, close to where NPA first emerged.

"As a matter of fact, I conceded too much too soon. Now, it's up to them if they will terminate the peace talks. Let them terminate it. I have freed their leaders, what more do you ask of us? I am running out of cards."

Duterte said violence between the two sides has declined in the last six months. The two sides have held two rounds of talks since August and plan to meet again early next year with the aim of agreeing on a set of political, economic and social reforms to address the rebellion within 12 months.

The rebels want farmlands to be distributed to landless farmers, the nationalization of industries and to share political power with the government.

Duterte, former mayor of Davao, a city that was once seen as a breeding ground for rebels, told soldiers at the base that he knew they were hurting from his decision to re-start peace talks and free top communist rebels, but that he was determined to end the conflict.

About 500 people suspected to be rebels are in jail, which include two men who were convicted of killing the U.S. military adviser, Colonel James Rowe, in 1989. </s> PRESIDENT Rodrigo Duterte has said the New People’s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), would be the government’s next target after the state forces have crushed the Islamic State-inspired terrorists in Marawi City.

Duterte issued the warning while saying that he no longer wanted to talk to the communist rebels, following a series of attacks against government forces.

“Huwag kayong masyadong magpakumpiyansa diyan kasi there is a strong resurgence… Nabubuhay na naman ang mga NPA. Pagkatapos nito, leche itong putukan… Pagkatapos nito, maubos ang mga u*** diyan, mag-reorient tayo, NPA na naman,” the President said in his speech during his visit to a military camp in Marawi City on Thursday.

The government cancelled back-channel efforts aimed at reviving formal talks after five members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) were wounded in an encounter with NPA rebels in Arakan, North Cotabato province, on Wednesday morning.

The NPA also attacked twice in Palawan province this week, killing two Marines and wounding another soldier.

Solicitor General Jose Calida also ordered government lawyers to invalidate the temporary liberty granted by various courts to the consultants of the rebel peace negotiators.

Duterte approved back-channel negotiations the night before the Arakan encounter.

The fifth round of talks between the government peace panel and the NDF consultants was initially set from May 27 to June 1 but was cancelled.

Chief government peace negotiator Silvestre Bello 3rd, later on, announced that the talks would resume in August. </s> President Rodrigo Duterte holds a caliber 45 pistol while Eduardo Ano, a Chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), looks on during a turnover ceremony for procured firearms for the AFP at the Malacanang presidential palace in metro Manila, Philippines July 18, 2017. Pic: Reuters

PEACE talks between the Philippine government and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) hit a snag anew, as a result of the guerilla “attack” in Mindanao that hurt four members of the Presidential Security Group (PSG).

Presidential Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza said the government peace panel would not pursue scheduled informal talks with the National Democratic Front (NDF), the political arm of the CPP, after the New People’s Army (NPA), the group’s armed wing, engaged a convoy of the President’s security personnel early Wednesday morning in the southern Philippines.

“I am announcing the cancellation of backchannel talks with the CPP/NPA/NDF originally set within the next few days in Europe due to recent developments involving attacks done by the NPAs,” Dureza said in a statement.

“The situation on the ground necessary to provide the desired enabling environment for the conduct of peace negotiations are still not present up to this time,” he added.

SEE ALSO: Philippines’ Duterte seeks to keep martial law till year’s end

The holding of the informal talks, which was announced recently by Silvestre Bello III, chair of the government peace panel talking with the communist rebels, was agreed by both parties earlier in a bid to resume the stalled fifth round of formal peace negotiations.

Besides the four wounded PSG personnel, a militiaman was killed during the firefight. The rebels also took hostage a government agent.

Government officials said the PSG personnel, who were doing “normal administrative movement for coordination,” encountered some 50 NPA rebels disguising as soldiers at a checkpoint in Arakan town, Cotabato province.

The communist rebels admitted they staged the checkpoint, and that the firefight occurred because the passengers of the unmarked armored vehicle refused to open the doors.

Duterte was not with the PSG convoy.

A day before the firefight between Duterte’s bodyguards and the NPA rebels, the President met with officials and members of the government peace panel to discuss the possible signing of a bilateral ceasefire agreement with communist rebels, a statement from Malacañang said.

During their meeting held at Malacañang Palace, the President directed the government panel negotiating with the NDF not to resume formal peace talks unless the rebels agree to stop their attacks against government troops in Mindanao.

The government panel, led by chief negotiator Secretary Silvestre Bello III, is set to conduct backchannel talks with the NDF to discuss the resumption of formal negotiations between the two groups, the statement said.

SEE ALSO: Philippines president withdraws ceasefire with communist rebels

In the Malacañang statement, Dureza said the resumption of formal talks would depend on the rebel group’s commitment to follow certain guidelines for a possible ceasefire deal with government.

“This includes suspending operations against the military and the police and stopping all their extortion activities on the ground, among others,” the statement said.

However, Dureza later on announced the government will not hold informal talks with the communist rebels following the PSG encounter with the insurgents.

Duterte, for his part, stressed on Tuesday “that the communists really need to stop engaging the military in Mindanao if they want to continue the peace negotiations,” adding that the government “has always dealt with the communist rebels in good faith.”

Before Dureza announced the cancellation of the informal talks, the government panel was planning to discuss the possible inclusion of socio-economic provisions in the interim peace agreement with the communist group.

They stressed that the NDFP needs to order its armed wing to halt all offensive operations against government troops in order to pursue their shared goal of sustaining economic development throughout Mindanao.

The fifth round of peace talks with the rebels was suspended on May 27 following orders by the CPP to the NPA to intensify attacks against security forces after Duterte declared martial law in Mindanao on May 23.

He put Mindanao under martial law for 60 days after the ISIS-inspired Maute Group clashed with government security forces trying to arrest Isnilon Hapilon, an Abu Sayyaf leader who was designated as “emir” of ISIS in Southeast Asia, in Marawi City.

The government is still conducting clearing operations in Marawi as of Thursday.

Duterte said he wants the martial law in Mindanao extended until the end of the year to fully crush the ISIS-inspired and other local terrorist groups operating in the island.

The Philippine Congress is set to hold a special session on Saturday, July 22, to deliberate the extension of martial law in Mindanao. </s> (UPDATED) The Communist Party of the Philippines thumbs down the move as a 'strongman’s act of bad faith'

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) – Solicitor General Jose Calida said on Thursday, July 20, that he will set in motion the re-arrest of National Democratic Front (NDF) consultants who were temporarily released from detention to participate in the peace talks.

Calida made the announcement on Twitter on Thursday, a day after President Rodrigo Duterte ordered government negotiators not to resume formal talks with communist rebels until their armed units stop attacking government troops in Mindanao, where martial law is in place.

"OSG (Office of the Solicitor General) will ask the courts to cancel all bail bonds of NDF Consultants, order their arrests, and recommit them to their detention facilities," Calida said.

Chief Peace Adviser Jesus Dureza announced that the government was also canceling backchannel talks.

The moves were apparently triggered by a clash on Wednesday between suspected members of the New People's Army (NPA) and the Presidential Security Group (PSG) in Arakan, North Cotabato.

In late May, the government, upon Duterte's orders, pulled out of the 5th round of talks after the Communist Party of the Philippines directed its armed units to intensify attacks against the military following the proclamation of martial law in Mindanao. He had also threatened to re-arrest the NDF consultants then.

"Another unfortunate knee-jerk hardball reaction that does not solve but aggravates the situation," added Edre Olalia, lawyer for the NDF consultants.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) thumbed down the move as a "strongman’s act of bad faith."

"It is a strongman’s act of bad faith aimed at bullying the NDFP to bow to his terms of surrender," the CPP said in a statement on Thursday.

It said Calida's move to seek the rearrest of the NDF consultants "is a violation of the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and violates their democratic rights under the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL)."

But Calida, on Twitter, cited a Supreme Court (SC) resolution which says that when peace talks cease, bail bonds are automatically canceled without deference to JASIG.

Twenty NDF consultants were temporarily released to join the peace talks, led by Benito and Wilma Tiamzon who will mark their first year of temporary liberty on August 19.



In February, in yet another roadblock to the peace talks, Duterte terminated the JASIG prompting the justice department to put the consultants on the immigration watchlist.

Calida immediately filed a motion before the Supreme Court (SC) to recall the bail grants.

Olalia said Calida's threat last February was "resolved by March backchannel talks which led to the April 4th round."

With no recalls being issued, Calida is doing the same thing now. – Rappler.com </s> Watch the special session of both branches of Congress live

Bookmark to watch live on Rappler on Saturday at 9:00 AM

MANILA, Philippines – As the martial law declaration on Mindanao expires on Saturday, July 22, President Rodrigo Duterte asks both branches of Congress to extend martial law until December 31.

In his letter sent to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III, Duterte pointed to the "newly evolving" urban warfare tactics employed by homegrown terrorists in Marawi City as the reason government troops will not be able to neutralize the rebels by Saturday, July 22.

Duterte officially sent his letter to Congress on Tuesday, July 18.

The President declared martial law in Mindanao after the military clashed with members of the Maute Group and Abu Sayyaf Group starting on May 23.

The 1987 Constitution allows the President to declare martial law for a maximum period of 60 days. Any extension requires the approval of both the House and the Senate, which will be holding a special session to discuss Duterte's request. – Rappler.com </s> Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte (C) with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) chairperson Al Haj Murad Ebrahim (L) and Ghazali Jaafar, MILF vice-chairman flash a "V" sign during a handover of a draft law of the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) in a ceremony at the Malacanang presidential palace in metro Manila, Philippines July 17, 2017. Pic: Reuters

PHILIPPINES President Rodrigo Duterte vowed on Monday to fast-track new legislation for autonomy in the country’s most volatile region, advancing a protracted process to end decades of rebellion and thwart rising Islamist militancy.

The Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL) submitted to Duterte on Monday is the culmination of a rocky 20-year peace process between the government of the predominantly Christian Philippines and the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

It aims to turn predominantly Muslim parts of the southern island of Mindanao into an autonomous region with its own executive, legislature and fiscal powers.

“May I say to you my brothers … I will support and hasten this instrument as it goes to the legislature,” Duterte said in a ceremony for the handover of the bill, drawing loud applause.

“There will be no objections of the provisions of all that is consistent with the constitution and aspirations of the Moro people.”

Passage of the bill would be a major achievement for Duterte, who was a mayor in a Mindanao city for 22 years and has made peace deals with separatists and Marxist rebels a priority for his year-old government.

SEE ALSO: ‘Imbecilic’ to listen to army on martial law, Filipino communist party tells Duterte

The bill’s submission comes at a critical time for the Philippines, as fears grow that militants allied with Islamic State have exploited disillusionment over the failure of the previous Congress to pass the law, and have used it to recruit fighters and further a radical agenda.

Rebels inspired by Islamic State have occupied the commercial heart of Marawi City, on Mindanao, through seven weeks of air strikes and battles with government troops that have killed more than 500 people and displaced 260,000, marking the country’s biggest security crisis in years.

“We live in very dangerous times… we watch with utter disgust of the destruction that violent extremism has inflicted in the city of Marawi,” MILF chairman Al Haj Ebrahim Murad said.

“These misguided people have filled the vacuum created by our failure to enact the basic law and (they) feed into the frustration of our people.”

The law, details of which were not immediately available, calls for the creation of a self-administered territory within what the Philippines called Bangsamoro, meaning “Moro nation”, referring to the southern Muslims that Spanish colonialists called “Moros”.

The bill, agreed by a panel of representatives from government, the MILF and religious groups, prescribes an elected legislative assembly, a chief minister, a cabinet, with an agreement to share natural resource revenues, stacked largely in favour of the new Bangsamoro government.

In a recent interview with Reuters in Cotabato City, Mohagher Iqbal, the MILF’s top peace negotiator, said the hope was for Congress to pass the law and a transition period to start in 2019, with elections in 2022 for an 80-seat assembly.

Iqbal said he feared the Marawi siege could complicate the passage of the law if there was a perception that the MILF and the radical Maute group fighting in Marawi were associated with each other because both hail from the same region.

“Right now we don’t really know the thinking of the people,” he said. – Reuters
The government of the Philippines and the Communist Party cancel peace talks after president Rodrigo Duterte declares martial law in Mindanao.