A CROSS section of Philippine society torched various social media platforms to express rejoice and their disappointment after the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) confirmed in its website last Saturday, December 17, 2022, the passing a day before of its founder, Jose Maria Sison at a hospital in Utrecht.
“The greatest Filipino of the past century bereaved us peacefully last night.
“Prof. Jose Ma. Sison, founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines, passed away at around 8:40 p.m. (Philippine time) after two weeks confinement in a hospital in Utrecht, The Netherlands. He was 83,” said the announcement, which also did not disclose the nature of Sison’s illness.
In a video conference on December 20, 2022, Sison’s comrade and former Catholic priest, Luis Jalandoni, said Sison actually died from a heart attack he suffered weeks before.
The death of Sison was much anticipated. Last February, then National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) spokesperson and presidential undersecretary Ma. Lorraine Badoy daring the CPP to show “sign of life” that Sison is still alive after he was not heard of for a long time (see also Pinoy Exposé, February 14, 2022).
A CIA beneficiary, spoiled son, and opportunist
Hailed from one of the biggest landholding families in the entire Northern Luzon, Sison was born in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur on February 8, 1939 and got his early education from elite schools like the Ateneo de Manila University and Colegio de San Juan de Letran before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at the University of the Philippines in 1959.
He then went to Indonesia and was heavily influence by the communist movement there headed by the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI) During the term of Pres. Bung Karno (Sukarno).
Journalist and respected columnist Rigoberto Tiglao and who was himself a former CPP cadre, once wrote in his column at the Manila Times (The tragedy of the Philippine communist insurgency | The Manila Times) that Sison was so influenced by the PKI leader Dipa Nusantara (D.N.) Aidit that he had no qualms “plagiarizing” Aidit’s work that was subsequently printed here as ‘Philippine Society and Revolution.’ The PSR eventually became “must reading” for all activists and future CPP cadres and was among the ideological basis for Sison’s stranglehold among the generations of CPP cadres and members.
Joseph Scalice, a prominent researcher on the history of Philippine communism and who has been a regular target of Sison’s threats and verbal abuse branded Sison as a ‘Stalinist’ and an opportunist who would not hesitate to support a faction of the ruling elite and against the interest of the workers and peasants for his own ends.
Scalice bared that it has always been the policy of Sison and the CPP to support a “faction” of the ruling elite, especially during elections, including Pres. Rodrigo Duterte during the 2016 elections, a revelation that got the ire of Sison who branded Scalice as a ‘Troskyist’ and agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
But betraying others, especially the poor, seems to be in the Sison’s genes. Scalice said that his research showed that in 1949, Sison’s father, Salustiano, wrote to his uncle, Vicente Mallari, to convey to then Department of Interior Secretary Sotero Baluyut, his desire to become a “government secret agent” against the “Huk.”
The ‘Hukbalahap’ a peasant-based army who fought a guerilla war against Japanese Imperialism and subsequently became the ‘HMB’ (Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan), the armed wing of the old PKP (Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas) and predecessor of the CPP’s New People’s Army (NPA).
“A new era without Jose Maria Sison dawns for the Philippines, and we will all be the better for it. The greatest stumbling block of peace for the Philippines is gone; let us now give peace a chance.” — Department of National Defense
He also averred that Sison would not have made it to UP but for the fact that one of his uncles was then university president who facilitated his entry to the university and even a scholarship paid for by the International Cooperation Agency (ICA). The ICA was the predecessor of USAID, a front organization of the CIA.
Quoting from a magazine interview with Sison’s own mother in 1970, Sison was described as a spoiled brat. “Maids had to wait on him constantly. He never did things for himself. Even in the bathroom he would call the servants to hand him his towel, his clothes,” Sison’s mother, said during the interview (see Pinoy Exposé, September 15, 2020 and the attached links for Scalice’s remarks).
After joining the PKP in 1962 and even while he was in Indonesia as an ‘observer’ for the PKP, Sison is already plotting his own coup against the party with the youth (students) as the backbone and driving force of his own version of communism.
By 1963, Sison was already a member of the PKP’s Execom and feigning loyalty all along, he worked hard to reconstitute the ‘Lapiang Manggagawa’ (Workers’ Party) in February of that year and the establishment of the ‘Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism’ (MAN) with prominent Filipino nationalists like JBL Reyes, Sen. Lorenzo Tañada and Sen. Claro M. Recto.
A month before his coup, on November 30, 1964, Sison helped established the ‘Kabataang Makabayan’ (KM).
Ironically, it was Jesus Lava, then PKP chair, who gave Sison the opportunity to break-away from the party when he approved a motion to let Sison undertake a ‘study’ of the PKP’s history and debacles a decade earlier that reduce its influence by the start of the 1960s.
In true Stalinist fashion, Sison used the opportunity to savagely criticize the PKP leadership of Lava, accusing it of “revisionism” and the HMB of “gangsterism.” Naturally, the harsh criticism did not sit well with Lava, giving Sison further justification to wreak the party by creating a new one.
Sison also used the “split” in the global communist movement between the Soviet Union and China. In need of international recognition, Sison promoted ‘Maoism’ in a bid to be recognized by China as the PKP is the party recognized by the Soviet Union.
By December, Sison was ready. On December 26, 1968, Sison and his like-minded young communists like Arthur Garcia, totally broke away from the PKP and ‘reestablished’ the CPP at a nipa hut in owned by the parents-in-law of Garcia in Bgy. Dulacac, Alaminos, Pangasinan.
With the help of opportunist politicians like Sen. Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr., Sison would manage to convince Bernabe ‘Kumander Dante’ Buscayno, a unit commander of the HMB (that Sison earlier branded as “gangsters”) based in Tarlac to join forces with him as the CPP’s armed wing and on March 29, 1969, the NPA was born.
And while professing that the workers and peasants are the “moving forces” of history, Sison actually focused his attention on the recruitment and radicalization of the country’s students as the core of his CPP.
With the well of youths and students spread all over the country’s university campuses who are all vulnerable to deceptive propaganda, Sison has found an effective tool to advance his own version of a ‘people’s democratic revolution.’
Stumbling block to peace and unity
While the CPP-NPA-NDF, their front organizations, urban operatives and their dwindling number of supporters mourn the passing of Sison, the bigger segments of Philippine society were unabashed in rejoicing over his death while regretting that he can no longer be brought before the bar of justice to face up to his many crimes against humanity.
The Department of National Defense (DND), in a statement, viewed Sison’s passing as “but a symbol of the crumbling hierarchy of the CPP-NPA-NDF, which he founded to violently put himself in power.”
“His death deprived the Filipino people of the opportunity to bring this fugitive to justice under our country’s laws. Sison was responsible for the deaths of thousands of our countrymen. Innocent civilians, soldiers, police, child, and youth combatants died because of his bidding.”
“His death certainly marks the end of an era, and it is my hope that, with it, the end of insurgencies in the Philippines and the revolutionary movement that he has founded as well.”– President Rodrigo Duterte
The DND also averred that Sison was the “greatest stumbling block” in the country’s quest for genuine peace.
“A new era without Jose Maria Sison dawns for the Philippines, and we will all be the better for it. The greatest stumbling block of peace for the Philippines is gone; let us now give peace a chance,” the DND said.
Prosecutor Flosemer Chris Gonzales, of the NTF-ELCAC Legal Cooperations Cluster, said Sison should be remembered as the founder of the “single most destructive and most notorious terrorist organization in the Philippines.”
“We will not rest until every single last terrorist of the CPP-NDF-NPA and their allied front organizations here and abroad are arrested, prosecuted, punished, and or neutralized or have chosen the path of reconciliation by surrendering unconditionally to the government,” Gonzales added.
Badoy, in a separate statement, said her only regret was that Sison did not die in the country to face our judicial system. “Death is too good for this evil communist terrorist,” Badoy said.
She also criticized the Dutch government for giving sanctuary to Sison since he sought asylum there in 1988, after his release from prison.
“(The Netherland) coddled and lent protection to this mass murderer for close to 4 decades and he therefore did not pay for the million and one crimes he committed and the massive grief and sufferings he was responsible for.
“For this, The Netherland has much to answer for to the Filipino nation and the global community,” Badoy pointed out.
The ‘Solidarity of Parents and Educators for Empowerment, Peace and Development (SPEED), said they grieve for all the teachers and parents whose sons and daughters and their relatives became victims of the terrorism and violence of the CPP-NPA-NDF under Sison.
“We grieve because Jose Maria Sison died without answering for the serious crimes he committed,” SPEED president Gemma Labsan said.
The ‘Hands Off Our Children Movement’ (HOOC) echoed the same sentiment in a statement it released last December 17, 2022. “We mourn for the families and children who fell victim to the ideology that he created.”
“We, in the Hands Off Our Children Movement, mourn that he died without facing all the crimes that he committed.
“Yes, he might escape justice to face the lack of humanity, but we believe he will be facing the highest court of our Almighty in heaven. Justice will prevail.”
The ‘Eastern Visayas Peace Builders Development Federation,’ which groups former CPP-NPA-NDF cadres and members, said they were “pleased” but at the same time “unsatisfied” over Sison’s death.
“We are extremely unsatisfied with his peaceful death because it is not enough for the lives lost and ruined due to the senseless violence instilled in the minds of Filipinos.
“Joma should have rotten in jail and felt the agony of losing liberty.”
In a message on Twitter, Vice President Sara Duterte merely posted a one-liner: “May God have mercy on his soul.”
Her father, Pres. Rodrigo Duterte, who was once recruited into the KM by Sison during his student days said:
“Mr. Sison is known for his radical ideas that affected the course of our country’s history and birthed a movement that carries on to this day.
“While Mr. Sison and I have had many disagreements—especially in the ways in which he chose to pursue and effect change in the country—I would like to believe that, at the end of the day, we shared the same dream of creating a better future for every Filipino.
“His death certainly marks the end of an era, and it is my hope that, with it, the end of insurgencies in the Philippines and the revolutionary movement that he has founded as well.”