Prof. Jose Maria Sison, chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and chairperson of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), was happy when the Dutch Public Prosecution Service decided to dismiss the charges against him for inciting murder in relation to the killings of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara – former Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) leaders who broke away from the group and became security consultants of the Philippine government. It meant, for him, more time for his work both for the NDFP Peace Panel and the ILPS International Coordinating Committee. He had always been confident, he said, that the charges against him would eventually be dismissed.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Prof. Jose Maria Sison, chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and chairperson of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), was happy when the Dutch Public Prosecution Service decided to dismiss the charges against him for inciting murder in relation to the killings of Romulo Kintanar and Arturo Tabara – former Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) leaders who broke away from the group and became security consultants of the Philippine government.
It meant, for him, more time for his work both for the NDFP Peace Panel and the ILPS International Coordinating Committee.
He had always been confident, he said, that the charges against him would eventually be dismissed.
“I was confident because of several reasons,” he said in an e-mail interview with Bulatlat. “First of all, I had nothing to do with the killing of the security consultants and military assets Kintanar and Tabara. Secondly, I had excellent Dutch and Filipino lawyers who undertook my legal defense. Thirdly, I had the abundant support of the people and organized forces worldwide.”
He admitted, though, that fighting this particular battle took some toll on him, especially in terms of the time he could have devoted to his work both as NDFP chief political consultant and ILPS chairperson. He was also “vexed for a long while,” he says, and he suffered moral and material damages. He and his family were financially burdened by the costs of the legal battle.
Professor, writer, revolutionary
Sison – a poet, essayist, and political analyst – taught English and Social Science courses at his alma mater, the University of the Philippines (UP), and the Lyceum of the Philippines in the 1960s, after graduating with honors in 1959.
He founded the progressive organizations Student Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines (SCAUP) and Kabataang Makabayan (KM). He was later also involved in the workers’ and peasant movements through the Lapiang Manggagawa (Workers Party) and the Malayang Samahan ng Magsasaka (MASAKA or Free Association of Peasants). He became secretary-general of the Socialist Party of the Philippines (SPP) and, later, the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN).
But he is best known as the founding chairman of the CPP. In 1968 he led a group that broke away from the leadership of the Lava brothers in the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) due to ideological differences, and re-established the party as the CPP.
Under Sison’s leadership, the CPP rapidly gained strength and together with the New People’s Army (NPA), its armed component, which was founded in 1969, it developed into one of the strongest organized forces opposed to the US-Marcos regime during the martial law years.
He was the CPP’s highest-ranking leader from its reestablishment until he was arrested by the Marcos dictatorship in 1977.
Released in 1986 by virtue of then President Corazon Aquino’s general amnesty proclamation for political prisoners, Sison got involved in a number of legal political activities and even delivered a series of lectures at UP.
In 1988, he found himself having to apply for political asylum after the Aquino government cancelled his passport while he was in Europe on a speaking tour. He has since lived in the Netherlands as an asylum seeker.
