President Rodrigo Duterte discouraged indigenous people or lumads in Mindanao from joining the communist New People's Army, saying they would just be killed and they cannot bring down the government.

In his speech during the IP Leaders' Summit in Davao City on Thursday, Duterte said those joining the communist insurgency were just courting their deaths.

"It’s not like there’s really a fight there. You go up, take up arms because you’re heading towards your death. You left your children. Don’t you feel sorry about that situation?," he said.

"And then what? If you kill --- even if you attempt to kill all my soldiers right here in front of me, will you be able to bring down this Republic? Do you have your air force? Do you have your helicopters? Do you have your own ships? Do you have your own army? Do you have your own camps?," Duterte said.

But he said the government has everything.

"If you choose to fight, then sorry. What are you doing? If you Manobos have a problem, go directly to --- Manobos. Why should you fight? Tell the NPAs that they will never win, not even in a million years --- not thousand. Don’t join that. It will never win. Can they win? They can’t even manage a barangay. And when the soldiers arrive, they scamper," he said.

Duterte, in his previous speeches, had said the NPA has been recruiting the lumads.

He even ordered the military to bombard those unregistered schools in southern Philippines which were being used by the NPA to indoctrinate the lumads. Celerina Monte/DMS