Jose Maria Sison

José María Sison (born February 8, 1939 in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, Philippines) is a writer and activist who reorganized the Communist Party of the Philippines by combining elements of Maoism. Since August 2002, he has been classified as a "person supporting terrorism" by the U.S. and the E.U., although the European Union's second highest court ruled to delist him from the EU terror list and thereby annulled the decision.[2] He is arrested on August 29, 2007 by the Dutch police on the charge of masterminding the murder of two former top leaders of the New People's Army.

Early years

A graduate of the University of the Philippines, in 1959, he studied in Indonesia, before returning to the Philippines to settle as a university professor of literature. In 1964, founded the Kabataang Makabayan or Patriotic Youth. This organization rallied Filipino youthagainst the Vietnam war, against the Marcos presidency and corrupt politicians.

On December 26, 1968, he formed and chaired the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), an organization founded on Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong Thought, stemming from his experience as a youth leader and labor and land reform activist. This is known as the First Great Rectification movement where Sison and other radical youth criticized the existing Party leadership and failure. The reformed CPP included Maoism with the political line as well as the struggle for a National Democratic two-stage revolution, constituting a National Democratic Revolution through a Protracted Peoples War as its first part, and to be followed by a Socialist Revolution.

After this, the old Communist Party sought to eliminate and marginalize Sison. However, the reorganized CPP had a larger base and renewed political line that attracted thousands to join its ranks. On March 29, 1969, the CPP organized the New People's Army (NPA), the guerrilla-military wing of the Party, whose insurgencies around the Philippines, particularly in the northern part of the country, persist to this day. The NPA seeks to wage a peasant-worker revolutionary war in the countryside against landlords and foreign companies.

After Martial Law was imposed, Sison was imprisoned and chained to a bed in a solitary cell. His experience was described in Prison & Beyond, a book of poetry released in 1986, which won the Southeast Asia WRITE award for the Philippines.

Exile

He went into exile in the Netherlands after Marcos era. This was after he had been released from imprisonment by the government of Corazón Aquino for the sake of "national reconciliation" and for his role in opposing Marcos. The release of Sison was vehemently protested by the military. It is reported that upon his release, Sison and his followers actively sought to discredit the Aquino government in the European media by speaking out on Aquino's human rights violations including the Mendiola Massacre where the military were accused of firing on unarmed peasants in Manila killing 17.

After the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo joined United States President George W. Bush, in using the event as a means of labeling Sison a terrorist. Sison's asylum status went into question as a result of the move and placed him in jeopardy of not having a viable home.

He is currently Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Since 1987, Sison has resided in the Netherlands where he is seeking asylum as a political refugee. A 2004 court ruling by the European Union endangers the residency status of Sison in Europe and he is expected to be expelled. He has been charged with orchestrating the murder 2001 of Congressman Rodolfo Aguinaldo in the Philippines. There has even been speculation the revocation of the death penalty in that country was in part to convince the Netherlands he could safely be deported, as he would have been facing the death penalty if convicted.

Arrest

The International Crime Investigation Team of the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department arrested José María Sison in Utrecht on August 18, 2007. José María Sison was arrested for his involvement from the Netherlands in three assassinations that took place in the Philippines, the murder on Romulo Kintanar in 2003, and the murders of Arturo Tabara and Stephen Ong in 2006. On the day of his arrest, José María Sison's apartment and eight apartments of his co-workers were searched by the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department. Sison 68 (who was questioned during the 6-hour police operation) will appear in a Hague court on Friday. Wim de Bruin announced that the trial will be in the Netherlands, not in the Philippines since there is no extradition request and the crimes punished under Dutch law, were committed in the Netherlands.

Controversies

1. Former Senator Jovito Salonga accused Sison of orchestrating the Bombing of Plaza Miranda during the Liberal Party Convention to force Marcos to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and sign Proclamation Number 1081 initiating the advent of Martial Law in the Philippines. This accusation comes from former CPP members such as Víctor Corpuz, Alex Magno and others.

2.He is also the primary initiator of the Second Great Rectification movement, a 'cultural revolution' which sought to reestablish the Party's Marxist-Leninist-Maoist(MLM) political line, which the revisionist factions would later turn into a bloody internal purge of fellow comrades in the CPP/NPA suspected of being DPAs (deep penetrating agents) of the military during the 1980s and the 1990s.

In the mid to late 1980s, certain CPP-NPA elements such as Víctor Corpuz, Popoy Lagman, Romulo Kintanar and Hector Mabilangan sought quick military victory against the Philippine government as mass protest against Marcos erupted in urban areas. With military victory for the CPP slower than expected, hysteria about DPAs (Deep Penetration Agents) was widespread. A purge initiated to root out DPAs resulted in the killing of thousands of people, including loyal and effective cadres of the Commmunist Party. Evidence of the bloody purge is beginning to surface with the discovery of mass graves in Quezon Province, Laguna, and in some parts of Mindanao. Former CPP/NPA member, Robert Francis García wrote a disturbing chronicle of the wild murders in his book, To Suffer Thy Comrade. This initiated the Second Great Rectification movement by Sison to end the bloody purges and to criticize leaders for errors that led to extreme actions such as the Kampanyang Ahos. Some leaders who disagreed to place themselves under the Rectification movement, and discipline of the Party were later cast out on the grounds of their crimes against the 'people and the revolution'. Some of these cast out leaders were also killed, the rest are under threat of being killed.

3. He is reported to have overseen the trial of Popoy Lagman, Romulo Kintanar, Héctor Mabilangan and members of the CPP. These individuals were tried by a “people's court” composed mainly of peasants who were alleged victims of human rights violations and the families of the victims of the purging caused during these individuals command.

4. The Philippine Military lately informed newspapers and released pictures of the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines dancing with Ara Mina in a sexy outfit and a young European girl and states the leader's life is different from those struggling in the hills. Asked to comment, Jose Ma. Sison said he was invited to a Christmas party by the local Filipino community. He also responded in a statement to the Daily Inquirer that to counter being labeled a "terrorist" by the EU and Philippine government, he is also trying to show his social side.

5. The European Union's second highest court of first instance ruled to delist Jose Maria Sison and the Stichting Al-Aqsa group from the EU terror list since the 27-nation bloc failed to respect their right when blacklisted. The Luxembourg-based Court of Justice further reversed a decision by member governments to freeze the assets of Sison and the Netherlands-based Al-Aqsa Foundation, since the EU governments failed to inform them why the assets were frozen. Dekker said that EU lawyers in Brussels can lodge any appeal. EU was also ordered to shoulder all the litigation expenses during the five-year appeal of Sison against the Dutch government and the EU.Sison however, is still part of the European Union’s terrorism list according to the Royal Netherlands Embassy in the Philippines (July 13, 2007). In a media released one-page statement, the embassy said that all persons and organizations on the EU terrorism list [and] includes Mr. Sison, the CPP, and the NPA [New People’s Army] on the list and maintains the freeze on their assets.National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales explained that the EU's decision is "not enforceable": “The council is higher than the court. There is a provision in the EU Charter that when a court ruling goes against the council’s decision, the latter will be upheld. The council has decided he is a terrorist, and because of this his assets should be frozen”. Gonzalez said, the Luxembourg-based court did not categorically say Sison’s assets should be released, but had merely questioned the process.

Quotations

"The people of the world, including progressive American forces, should forewarn the American people not to be carried away by jingoism, war hysteria and the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim drumbeat." - José María Sison At Home in the World: Portrait of a Revolutionary (co-authored by Ninotchka Rosca)

Works

• 1995. The Implosion of the Communist Party of the Philippines: an interview with Jose Maria Sison. Clayton, Victoria : Centre of Southeast Asian Studies, Monash University.
• 1989. The Philippine Revolution : The Leader's View. With Rainer Werning. New York : Crane Russak.
• 1984. Prison and Beyond: Selected Poems, 1958-1983. Quezon City: Free Jose Maria Sison Committee.
• 1971. Philippine Society and Revolution. As Amado Guerrero. Manila: Pulang Tala.

References and further readings

• Rosca, Ninotchka (2004). José María Sison: At Home in the World. Open Hand Publishing.

External links

• www.josemariasison.org