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Malacanang said on Thursday the communist National Democratic Front is pathetic after it disclosed a plot allegedly by the US Central Intelligence Agency to assassinate communist leader Jose Maria Sison and to oust President Rodrigo Duterte.

In a press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Ernesto Abella said the attempts to overthrow Duterte are not new as it has been around from day one of his administration.

"However, this latest twist where they include themselves is an insertion of themselves into the plot. It's rather pathetic," he said.

Abella said as far as Duterte is concerned, there was no basis to reports about move to overthrow him.

A statement of the NDF National Executive Committee on August 8 said it has received reports from several sources in the Armed Forces of the Philippines that military officers who are assets of the CIA and were close to AFP Chief of Staff General Eduardo Ano were engaged in a two-stage plot to kill Sison, and subsequently to overthrow Duterte.

It claimed a hit team would be sent to the Netherlands to assassinate Sison, "with the verbal approvals of Duterte and Ano, "before or after the proclamation of martial law nationwide.

"The rationale of the assassination is to demoralize the revolutionary forces and possibly sow confusion and pandemonium among them," it said.

The second stage of the military plot, the NDF said would be a coup to overthrow Duterte for having "collaborated" with the communist party and the New People's Army for decades, "betraying the alliance with the US and veering towards China and Russia, playing favorites with certain military and police officers, subverting the professional standards of the military and police forces, corrupting and criminalizing them in the commission of extrajudicial killings and failing to solve the problem of illegal drugs despite the crude and flagrant violations of human rights."

Duterte has decided to terminate the formal peace talks with the NDF amid continuous attacks by the NPA to businesses and the government troopers. Celerina Monte/DMS