MANILA: Members of the communist New People’s Army (NPA) abducted a senior police officer in North Cotabato province in Mindanao even as a Malacanang Palace official said it was unlikely the government would resume peace talks with the insurgents in 2018.

Officials said Inspector Menardo Cui, the deputy police chief of the town of President Roxas in North Cotabato, was off-duty and was entertaining friends in a sing-along bar on Thursday night when he was kidnapped.

Officials cited the testimonies of witnesses who said they saw several armed men, believed to be NPAs, enter the joint, herded Cui at gunpoint to a waiting vehicle and then fled.

The NPA reportedly has a list of personalities targeted for abduction and even assassination for their alleged involvement in illegal drugs, human rights violations, corruption and as heads of criminal syndicates.

The NPA is the armed component of the Communist Party of the Philippines, which observed its 49th founding anniversary on Dec.26, that has been waging a Maoist-style insurgency against the government for close to 50 years, considered the longest in the region.

In Malacanang Palace, Harry Roque, the presidential spokesman, said it was unlikely the government would resume peace talks in 2018 with the Maoists due to their unabated attacks even with a holiday ceasefire still in effect.

“Because of their traitorous acts, the (resumption of the talks) is not likely to happen,” said Roque, adding President Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte would not call off the traditional ceasefire he had declared for Christmas and the New Year.

“We did not renege on our promise. We will keep our word. We will just let the NPA show their true form as traitors,” Roque emphasised, referring to the Duterte’s declaration of a unilateral holiday truce with the Maoists.

The Duterte ceasefire was from Dec. 23 to Dec. 26 and from Dec. 30 to Jan. 2, 2018 - a move which the Maoists have reciprocated that covered the same dates.

Recently, Duterte signed a proclamation declaring the CPP-NPA as “terrorist organisations” but before that he also formally announced the cancellation of their peace talks hosted by Oslo, Norway which has been brokering the negotiations.