Retired Gen. Eduardo Ermita, presidential adviser on the peace process, said they have not confirmed the reported statement of chief rebel negotiator Luis Jalandoni "to recommend to our principals to hold under indefinite study" negotiations with the government.
For his part, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez said the government must confirm the statement because the NDF has made many statements which it later retracted.
"The position of the government is very clear: ever since, there are lines of communication with any group wanting to talk with us, formal or back-channeling," Golez said.
In Lucena City, President Arroyo said she is continuing the policy of her predecessors in fighting communist rebels who are determined to overthrow the government.
"I am against communism," Mrs. Arroyo quoted Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon as saying. "I am a firm believer in the institution of private property. Should anyone attempt to convert every Filipino into a communist, the government will act without loss of time."
Mrs. Arroyo said Philippine presidents from Quezon to Manuel Roxas and Ramon Magsaysay and other chief executives have sworn to defend the Republic from communism.
"We fight communism as an ideology," she said. "We’re not fighting the communists except those who do terrorist violence."
Mrs. Arroyo said the government supports the US action declaring the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) as a terrorist organization.
"Because of the terrorism the (CPP-NPA) do, especially here in Quezon (province), the primary goal of this group is the violent overthrow of the government," she said. "So not all communists are considered terrorists in this world."
Mrs. Arroyo said Quezon, Osmeña, Roxas and succeeding Philippine presidents have followed the foreign policy that the Philippines is an ally of the US.
"Regard America as a true friend of the Philippines and adopt the policy never to quarrel with America," Mrs. Arroyo quoted Quezon as saying in 1944.
In Pampanga, suspected communist rebels killed an Army soldier and a civilian in Sta. Ana town Friday and shot dead a policeman in Mexico town Sunday.
Senior Superintendent Silvestre Primero, Sta. Ana police chief, identified the dead soldier as Sgt. Jovencio Vidal, a native of Pangasinan and a member of the 69th Infantry Battalion.
In Mexico, Senior Police Officer 1 Dante Diwa, finance chief of the town police, was shot six times in the head and different parts of the body as he was about to buy a newspaper at 12:45 p.m.
Three men on a motorcycle gunned down Diwa before fleeing toward Barangay Lacmit. –Marichu Villanueva, Ding Cervantes, Benjie Villa