The Communist Party of the Philippines has withdrawn its earlier commitment to support President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-narcotics campaign as it denounced the murder of almost 1,000 suspected drug pushers and drugs users since the commander-in-chief took office.
“The anti-drug war of the Duterte regime has rapidly spiraled into a frenzied campaign of extra-judicial killings and vigilante murders perpetrated by the police and by police-linked criminal syndicates. The rights of tens upon thousands of people are being violated as the criminal justice system is upturned,” the CPP said in a statement on Saturday.
“Duterte’s drug war has clearly become anti-people and anti-democratic. Human rights are being violated with impunity by police personnel, emboldened by Duterte’s assurances of ‘I got your back’ and his public declarations of contempt against human rights,” it added.
The CPP’s decision is the latest thorn in the peace talks that are expected to begin in Oslo, Norway on August 20.
Duterte earlier withdrew a unilateral truce he had earlier declared with the New People’s Army after the latter failed to meet his deadline to declare a reciprocal ceasefire.
The President issued the ultimatum after the rebels attacked a group of militiamen who were returning to base in Davao del Norte.
This led to a heated exchange through media between Duterte and his former professor, CPP founding chairman Jose Ma. Sison, who accused the President of being quarrelsome.
“He thinks he has gotten himself a personal servant. That cannot be. Duterte can never order the revolutionary group to follow what he wants,” Sison said.
Duterte gave a second ultimatum to the NPA to stop using landmines, saying it was against the Geneva convention.
This was again rejected by the CPP-NPA, which instead ordered its troops to “expand use of command-detonated explosives (CDX) in launching tactical offensives against the reactionary armed forces.”
The CPP made a “positive response” for the NPA to kill individuals suspected of being involved in the illegal narcotics trade.
The CPP accused Duterte of coddling suspected big drug lords and their protectors while “unleashing unmitigated violence and threats of violence against the people, mostly victims and people at the lowest rungs of the criminal syndicate ladder.”
“Duterte has become so full of himself and intoxicated with the vast power he is not used to handle that he thinks he can get away with upturning the criminal judicial system and denouncing people for defending human rights. He dishes out threats of imposing martial law. He has made himself a laughing stock among legal circles. He, however, is not laughing and threatens anyone who chooses to stand in his way,” the CPP said.