“He lamented that Filipinos are killing fellow Filipinos due to the difference in ideologies fostered by Joma.

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) absentee chairman Joma Sison, apparently despondent over his degraded New People’s Army (NPA) force, is now sending feelers to resume talks with President Rody Duterte.

The top communist is apparently hurting due to the strides that the government has made that even the offer of a better life for his comrades has spooked him.

Duterte has offered to give NPA guerillas house and employment if they surrender to the government under a recalibration of the peace process that now takes a regional approach.

Joma, in a statement, has accused Rody of trying to bribe the NPA rebels to surrender.

Coming from the President of the Republic, such an offer hardly qualifies as a bribe since the intent is to improve the lives of Filipinos whose indoctrination by Joma had led to their miserable state.

A handful of the guerillas, mainly the cadres, are students whose parents expect to have a good future but are now risking their lives for a bankrupt ideology.

Even China, from where the CPP had adopted most of its principles, has abandoned the fundamentalist concept of communism and taken a capitalist approach in economic development which resulted in the country’s quick progress.

Presidential spokesman Sal Panelo said Joma should not construe the President’s aspirations for peace as a form of bribery.

“The President’s offer to the New People’s Army for dwelling and employment, if and when their members lay down their arms, is a mere reiteration of his proposal to the rebel group to take a new direction in its advocacy,” he said.

Rody walked the extra mile in seeking peace with the rebels when he opened another opportunity for reform to communist guerillas now without going through the impossible impositions of Joma.

“Joma should not construe the President’s aspiration for peace as a form of bribery.

The military had uncovered in documents seized from communist guerilla hideouts that Joma and his scheming cabal had merely exploited the peace negotiations to consolidate forces for its unwavering goal of ousting Rody.

Rody’s desire is to resolve the 50-year armed conflict between the government and the communists, which is one of the longest rebellions in the world.

He lamented that Filipinos are killing fellow Filipinos due to the difference in ideologies fostered by Joma.

“There were those bright and youthful leaders who could have served this nation and improved their respective careers if only their lives were not cut short from the skirmishes emanating from this armed struggle,” Panelo said.

Moral ascendancy is not even something Joma, who issues statements from his comfortable abode in Utrecht, Netherlands, can claim.

His expensive European residency is also partly maintained by so-called revolutionary taxes which is the NPA’s extortion activities from businesses that it can frighten into submission.

The success of the regional negotiations with the communist rebels has resulted in a continuous flow of insurgents surrendering to the government.

The effect of these defections obviously pushed Joma to signify anew that the National Democratic Front is ready to negotiate with the government.

Rody appears unlikely to talk peace again with Joma as the Red October plot had indicated that the goal of the CPP will never be the attainment of peace but the takeover of power.

The Palace asking Joma to show sincerity is also futile since the CPP chieftain does not have any measure of control on the NPA which operates mostly on its own and considers Joma as a symbolic head and nothing more.

Rody’s offer of a better life for members of the NPA in exchange for laying down arms is the same rehabilitation scheme given to members of the secessionist movement in Mindanao that is now seeing them on the road to an improved life.

Filipinos would look at Sison more favorably if he would use his communist discourses against the intrusive plan of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) that looks into allegations of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV of political persecution due to his revived cases of three military takeover attempts he led during the term of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The IPU, whose members Joma has a good chance of knowing, had indicated plans to visit the country over “deep concern” about suspected human rights violations committed against Trillanes.

His communist wards in the universities always rail against foreign intrusions which is how the IPU action should be categorized.