President Rodrigo Duterte is “killing” peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) by ruling out a third-party facilitator for the negotiations, exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison said on Tuesday.

“The political swindler and butcher Duterte is willfully and maliciously killing the peace negotiations by breaking the standing GRP [Government of the Republic of the Philippines]-NDFP agreement on foreign neutral venue and dismissing the third-party facilitator,” Sison added in a statement.