A PHILIPPINE government court petition to designate the New People’s Army as terrorists is a desperate attempt to alienate it from the people, NPA commander Jaime Padilla said yesterday.

But he insisted that the NPA and its Maoist political wing, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), are still open to talks to settle their insurgency.

Mr Padilla said that President Rodrigo Duterte would, like past leaders, fail to defeat the NPA and so was resorting to “fake news” to undermine the Maoist fighters, who have waged an insurgency for nearly half a century with what he said was the people’s support.