MANILA (UCAN): Failure of the Philippine government and communist rebels into enter into peace talks risks an escalation of violence and rights’ abuses, the Philippine Ecumenical Peace Platform, an ecumenical group of Churches, has warned.
 

MANILA (UCAN): The president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, said at the beginning of April that he was giving the government and rebel peace panels “a timeline of two months” to resume the talks that bogged down last year.
 
He claimed that it was the rebel National Democratic Front of the Philippines that had been pressing for the resumption of negotiations.
 
Talks broke down in November after Duterte accused the rebels of attacking government installations especially in the provinces.