DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria Sison warned that Filipinos are expected to experience the worst economic and political crisis for 2019, attributing to the imposition of higher taxes and commodity and services prices are expected to rise faster this year.
“The Filipino people expect that this year, 2019, the socioeconomic and political crisis of the ruling system will worsen and that the Duterte regime will not solve or soften but will even aggravate the crisis by imposing heavier taxes and causing the prices of basic goods and services to rise further…,” Sison said in a statement on Wednesday.
For 2019, Sison said that the economic policies implemented by President Rodrigo Duterte would “further inflict grave social and economic suffering on the people.”
On CPP’s outlook for peace negotiations with the government, Sison stressed that CPP’s political arm, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) is still open to the proposal to get back in the peace table.
While the communist group has signified its intent to resume the stalled peace talks, Sison said that NDFP’s priority now is to work for the ouster of the chief executive.
“The NDFP is authorized to be open to peace negotiations with the current and prospective regime of the reactionary government but its principal work now is to work for the ouster of the Duterte regime,” Sison said.
Sison argued that Duterte has doused all hopes that the peace talks between the communists and the government would resume this year after he issued several proclamations and executive orders terminating with finality the stalled negotiations.
Sison said that Duterte “issued proclamations and executive orders in order to terminate peace negotiations and further render them impossible during his rule. What he wants is impossible, which is the surrender of the revolutionary movement of the people.”
“Duterte is not interested in serious peace negotiations to address the roots of the armed conflict and make comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms in order to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace,” Sison said. (davaotoday.com)
