Rody’s handling of Reds will show if he ‘walks his talk’

ALLOW us to react to Vencer Crisostomo’s letter titled “Anakbayan’s present for Duterte: challenges” (Opinion, 5/13/16). He called on presumptive president-elect Rodrigo Duterte to “resume… negotiations between the National Democratic Front (NDF) and the Philippine government” and demanded the “immediate release of all 561 political prisoners…”

What is it that the NDF really wants to continue negotiating? A slice of the country where its New People’s Army can claim as its own inviolable “sovereign” territory—a stepping stone to its ultimate goal of setting up a Maoist regime throughout the land, just as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) is using the proposed Bangsomoro Basic Law as a stepping stone to achieve its ultimate goal of setting up an Islamic regime to control the entire heterogeneous population of this country with iron chains around its neck!

Duterte is said to be in “friendly” terms with the NDF and the MILF. But if we go by his campaign battle cry to “fix this country” by exacting punishment and swift justice on perpetrators of atrocious and heinous crimes, he should demand the unconditional surrender of bandits. The tough talker should “walk his talk”! That should be the first test of the kind of stuff he is really made of. Or was he just all bluster during the campaign?

—YVETTE SL-PETROCELLI, [email protected]