DAVAO CITY (MindaNews/24 December) — Invited to come down from the hills to visit their families on Christmas day, the communist New People’s Army (NPA) in Paquibato city instead asked Mayor Sara Duterte and her father, vice mayor Rodrigo Duterte, to go to the hills and join them in the celebration of the 42nd year of the Communist Party of the Philippines on December 26.
“As a gesture of the continuing goodwill of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), we formally invite Inday Sara and Digong (the name fondly used for the vice mayor) to celebrate with us in the mountains for the CPP’s 42nd founding anniversary on December 26,” said a statement signed by New People’s Army leader Ka Parago, the nom de guerre of Leoncio Pitao.
“Instead of coming down from the hills, the Red fighters invite Inday Sara and Digong to come and visit our guerilla bases in the hinterlands.”
“We are more than happy to share with Inday Sara and Digong the felicity that comes with living among the masses,” Parago said in reply to the mayor’s invitation early this month for all NPA fighters to come to the city and visit their families.
Parago, who had eluded capture despite the abduction and killing of his daughter Rebelyn Pitao on March 4 last year, also picked on Col. Medel Aguilar, the 10th ID-AFP spokesman, who vowed to arrest him whenever he sets foot in the city, describing it as a “fascist delusion borne out of the 10th ID-‘s growing frustration in stemming the tide of the people’s war,” Parago said.
Over the weekend, the vice mayor warned the military who would dare arrest NPA members going down the mountains to spend Christmas in the family.
The chairs of the government and National Democratic Front peace panels had agree ceasefire from December 16 to January 3, and acheduled yet another informal meeting second week of January, in preparation for the formal negotiations on or about the third week of February 2011. The NDF
withdrew from the talks in August 2005. (Germelina Lacorte/MindaNews)