MANILA - Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison on Thursday accused his former student, President Rodrigo Duterte, of being the top terrorist in the Philippines, saying the latter is responsible for the "mass murder" of drug suspects, among others.

This, after the government cancelled peace negotiations with the communist rebels in line with Duterte’s order.

• Gov't cancels talks with Reds on Duterte's order

“He is culpable for the abduction, torture and mass murder of an increasing large number of poor people suspected drug users and pushers, peasants and indigenous people in suspected guerrilla fronts and Moro people suspected of aiding the Dawlah Islamiyah from the time of the indiscriminate bombing of Marawi City to the present in several Bangsamoro areas,” Sison said in a statement.

Duterte on Saturday said he is no longer inclined to resume peace talks with the CPP-New People's Army-National Democratic Front of the Philippines (CPP-NPA-NDFP), whose members he branded as "terrorists" and "criminals."

• Duterte says no longer inclined to resume peace talks with Reds

"I will be issuing a proclamation. I will be removing them from the category of a legal entity or at least a semi-movement which would merit our attention, placing them pareho sa Amerika--terrorist," he
said. "I would consider them criminals already."

The president also blasted the NPA anew for carrying out an ambush in Talakad, Bukidnon that left a 4-month-old baby dead, saying it was an "intentional" act.

He, however, renewed his offer for the rebels to lay down their arms and surrender to the government instead.

On Thursday, the NDFP's chief political consultant hit back and said Duterte has already been discredited as a "mass murderer, political swindler, a sycophant to foreign powers and a corrupt bureaucrat" and that the latter is bent on setting up a fascist dictatorship.

“Duterte's bloodlust and mania for mass murder are boundless. He expects to wipe out through arbitrary arrests, torture, indefinite detention and massacre of suspected revolutionaries and legal social activists both the armed revolutionary movement and the legal democratic movement in order to set up a fascist dictatorship in the service of US imperialism and his fellow oligarchs among the big compradors, landlords and corrupt bureaucrats,” he said.

• Duterte threatens to order arrest of Left's ‘legal fronts’

Sison also assailed the relationship between Duterte and the United States, which have since warmed after US President Donald Trump was elected into office.

“The US-Duterte regime is hell-bent on frustrating the people´s clamor for peace negotiations to address the roots of the civil war through the adoption and implementation of social, economic, political and constitutional reforms as the basis of a just and lasting peace,” he said.

“Even within the reactionary armed forces and police, there are already rumblings against the despotic, criminal and corrupt character of the US-Duterte regime.”