Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has passed away. The armed wing of the Communist Party is battling one of Asia’s longest-running insurgencies. He turned 83.
After being confined to a hospital in Utrecht, the Netherlands, for two weeks, Sison passed away peacefully on Friday eveningparty spokesman Marco Valbuena said in a statement on Saturday. The cause of death was unknown.
Since then President Corazon Aquino released him from prison in 1986, shortly after the People Power uprising overthrew dictator Ferdinand Marcos, the father and namesake of the current president of the Philippines, Sison has lived alone in the Netherlands.
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Sison died 10 days before the 54th anniversary of the party he founded in 1968, which was December 26. The armed wing, the New People’s Army, was formed a few months later, in March 1969. There were only about 60 Maoist fighters in the army, and they had only nine automatic rifles and 26 single-shot rifles and pistols. But over time, the movement grew and spread across the poor country.
The guerrilla group, which the US calls a terrorist group and which continues to pose a major threat to Philippine security, has been weakened by losing battles, giving up and fighting among themselves. About 40,000 people on both sides of the communist uprising died. It has also slowed economic growth, especially in rural areas, where the military says there are still some 2,000 insurgents.
In the past, several governments tried to make peace with communist rebels, who were represented by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, where Sison was the chief political adviser.
Former President Rodrigo Duterte halted peace talks in March 2019, and they have not yet resumed. “The Philippine proletariat and the toiling people mourn the death of their teacher and guiding light”, the party’s statement said.
Founder and lifelong leader of the Stalinist Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Ma. Sison, died on December 16 at the age of 83.
No figure in the past half century played a greater role in the betrayal of the Philippine working class and oppressed masses than Joma Sison. 1/ pic.twitter.com/v4q38FoSD1— Joseph Scalice (@josephscalice) December 17, 2022
“Even as we mourn, we pledge (to) remain to give all our strength and determination to carry on the revolution, guided by the memory and teachings of the people’s beloved Ka Joma,” added the statement, referring to Sison by his nickname.
The daughter of the former president, vice president Sarah Duterte, made a brief statement about Sison’s death. She said, “May God have mercy on his soul.”
The Ministry of National Defense said Sison killed thousands of civilians and soldiers. It said his death “deprived the Filipino people of the opportunity to bring this fugitive to justice under the laws of the land.”
In 2019, a Manila court ordered the arrest of Sison and 37 other people because they were believed to be involved in a 1985 massacre. Soldiers found a mass grave in 2006 in the town of Inopacan on Leyte Island. would contain the bones of rebels killed by their own people because they believed they were spying for the military.
In a September 2019 Facebook post, Sison denied the charges against him. He said it was a “phony plot” and that the government had used graveyard bones to frame him and the others. He said he and the other suspects were all in prison when the murders allegedly took place.
We mourn the passing of Jose Maria Sison – poet, revolutionary, servant of the people until his last breath.
Thanks to Joma’s work, we now understand the social reality of the Philippines. His legacy flows through the leagues of people fighting for equality worldwide. pic.twitter.com/MgfewLlf0u
— Reyna Valmores (@ReynaValmores) December 17, 2022
Sison was a youth activist and college professor before founding the Communist Party. He was a key player in the rebels’ acrimonious split in the 1990s, as they had different ideas about how to fight.
Hundreds of rebels were killed in a bloody purge, further weakening them. At their peak there were some 25,000 rebels, now only a few thousand remain. “A new era is dawning without Jose Maria Sison for the Philippines, and we will all be better off.” said the Ministry of Defense.
The Communist Party has not said anything about who could take over from Sison… Because more such updates follow us only on Lee Daily.
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