Free political prisoners, Duterte urged

LOCAL rights group Karapatan on Friday called on presumptive president Rodrigo Duterte to immediately release all political prisoners, some of them ailing and elderly, and resume the stalled peace negotiations between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), once he assumes office in July.

“We challenge the Duterte presidency to build on the people’s votes that was mostly repudiation of everything that is the ‘tuwid na daan’. He can start by junking Oplan Bayanihan and similar counterinsurgency programs and take the road to genuine peace by addressing the roots of unpeace and the ongoing civil war through the negotiating table,” Cristina Palabay, the group’s secretary general, said in a statement.