Duterte to issue EO on localized peace talks
President Rodrigo Duterte will issue an executive order providing the guidelines for the localized peace talks with the communist rebels, Malacanang said on Thursday.
In a press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said during the meeting on Wednesday in Malacanang of members of the security and justice cluster of the Cabinet with Duterte, they discussed how to pursue the localized peace talks.
"So there will be an executive order that will spell out the guidelines that were agreed upon yesterday," he said.
He said there will be four localized peace talks where a third party will be included.
These include localized peace talks between the local peace channel and local fighters; community dialogue; local peace package; and confidential dialogue, he said.
In the community dialogue, Roque said there will be informal open communication line and liaison network to facilitate peace package, social media exploitation, community pressure on the fighters to participate in the local peace process.
Under the local peace package, there will be a direct availment of the government's peace initiative intended to provide the integration and mainstreaming support without going through a process of peace negotiation, he said.
The confidential dialogue, on the other hand, will be undertaken to a combatant armed group who desires to lie low without open documentation and will not avail of the peace package program, Roque added.
The government is pushing for localized peace talks amid the non-continuance yet of the formal peace talks between the national government and the National Democratic Front, the political wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People's Army. Celerina Monte/DMS
