Government and communist rebel negotiators are on the verge of resuming formal peace talks after the two sides adopted an interim truce agreement that stopped short of requiring insurgents to lay down their arms. The agreement requires the ceasefire committees of both sides to meet separately to finalize guidelines for the truce to hold. The President has said the rebels must stop collecting revolutionary taxes as a gesture of sincerity in the negotiations to peacefully end the nearly half-century Maoist insurgency. “Donor countries” would be allowed to provide funding, but only for the noncombat needs of the rebels, the source said. The military, quoted in a December 2017 report by the Inquirer, estimated that the NPA collects up to P460 million a year in revolutionary taxes in Southern Mindanao alone.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer May 09, 2018 22:52 UTC