Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana admitted in a business forum on Tuesday that he blocked the resumption of the peace negotiation.

“They (leftists) are correct. I was the one who was blocking the talks because I said Mr. President let us stop the talks with the CPP ( Communist Party of the Philippines) NPA ( New People’s Army), it is not going anywhere. If they would only sign a joint ceasefire with us today we can advocate peace talks immediately. Without that, it’s useless,” he said.

“They want us to pursue peace talks and maybe along the way they are going to inject their idea of a reform which is socialistic. If we accept their formula, then they will own ownership of that, they will say this happened because of us. So they will hijack that. They will hijack to make their own. If we will not agree, they will say we are anti-peace,” Lorenzana added.

Lorenzana reiterates he will support the resumption of the peace negotiation if a bilateral ceasefire agreement between the communists and the government is forged.

“We have noticed that the NPA, the NDF want the peace talks to go on while the fighting is also going on. If you remember we had this unilateral ceasefire last year which they violated left and right that’s why the president had to stop the ceasefire of the government,” he said.

“So the decision that we have, came up at the cabinet level, is to have a bilateral ceasefire immediately before we can continue with the peace talks,” Lorenzana added. Robina Asido/DMS