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MANILA (UPDATED) - President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday insisted that his talks with communist leader Jose Maria Sison should be done in the Philippines, even as the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) was already preparing to come back to the country following nearly three decades of exile.

“I’m talking to Sison, siya 'yung nagwawala (he is the one making a ruckus). Why should I talk outside? We are talking about our country, my country… Why do we have to talk the f****** thing outside?” Duterte said in a speech during the 81st anniversary celebration of the Government Service Insurance System.

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Rey Casambre, a consultant for the communist rebels, said Sison had agreed to the return to the Philippines as early as mid-August this year.

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Casambre said the date of return was proposed by the government peace panel during backchannel negotiations in Utrecht, The Netherlands where Sison has been on self-exile since the late 1980s.

Sison earlier told ABS-CBN News he was optimistic he could visit Manila within the year depending on the outcome of negotiations on substantive portions of the peace talks.

He said his return would depend on the “necessary political, legal, security and technical requirements” contained in a document signed by the two negotiating panels last June 9.

The government recently postponed the resumption of peace talks with communist rebels, citing the need to consult the public with the developments and proposals put forward on the negotiating table.

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Casambre said Sison’s return in August was still possible despite the postponement.

The communist peace panel, however, said that holding the peace talks in the Philippines would be non-negotiable. -- reports from Dharel Placido and Christian V. Esguerra, ABS-CBN News