DAVAO CITY – Bayan Muna Party-list welcomed the resumption of peace talks between the communists and the incoming Duterte administration.
Karlos Isagani Zarate, first nominee of Bayan Muna said that they welcome the openness of both the incoming Duterte administration and the National Democratic Front (NDF) of the Philippines to resume peace talks.
Zarate said that in the past six years of Benigno Aquino III administration, the peace process “has been placed in the back-burner.”
“It was stolen after the initial talk last February of 2011 in Oslo, Norway,” he said.
The government’s peace panel including incoming peace adviser, Jesus Dureza and government chief negotiator for the NDF, Silvestre Bello, “are now on their way to Oslo, Norway for the preliminary talks with the representatives of the NDF,” Zarate said.
The two parties will meet on Wednesday, June 15 to prepare the ground rules for the formal resumption of the peace talks.
Aside from the GPH-NDF peace talks, Zarate also said that they also welcome the offer of President-elect Duterte for the cabinet positions to the Left.
Duterte appointees from the Left included former Anakpawis representative Rafael Mariano for the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), labor leader Joel Maglungsod as undersecretary of the Department of Labor and Employment, and Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) women’s committee head Judy Taguiwalo for the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). (davaotoday.com)
