Message from Jose Maria Sison
at the Pamana ng Panahon Event in New York
June 10, 2007
I should be with you in person tonight. But the Bush global war of terror,
which has put me in the so-called terrorist blacklist, makes it impossible for
me to take any flight to New York. At any rate, I am with you in spirit and
electronically. I welcome all of you, the organizers, the endorsers, the manager
of the bookstore, the readers, the musical artist, the distinguished guests and
all friends.
When I came out of fascist prison in 1986, some friends suggested to me to rewrite and update Philippine Society and Revolution. I told them that it was indeed tempting for me to rewrite certain parts and expand the book but this had already become a historical document in connection with the foundation of the resurgent armed revolution in the Philippines in the late sixties and early seventies. As a historical document, the book should remain as it is. Certain details and phrases in the text may be dealt with by new prefaces, footnotes, appendices and by further articles and books. In this regard, I take this opportunity to announce that the project to publish my writings in more than ten volumes is going on.
I think that on the whole the PSR succeeds in presenting the basic strands of Philippine history up to 1969, the basic problems of foreign monopoly capitalism, domestic feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism and the people's democratic revolution as the basic solution. These remain valid to this day and shed light on the current situation. The semicolonial and semifeudal character of the Philippine ruling system persists. It has been merely aggravated and deepened from the time of the Marcos regime to the current Arroyo regime. I have found it gratifying that readers still find the book as a good base for reading and understanding further literature on the subject and further developments in the Philippine revolution.
I am pleased that the organizers are promoting and selling At Home in the World (co-authored with the Filipina novelist Ninotchka Rosca) in tandem with Amado Guerrero's PSR. AHTW gives you a full sweep of my personal experience as well as the revolutionary experience of the Filipino people from the first printed edition of the PSR in 1970 to the present. The main text is in the format of an interview and makes easy reading. At any rate, all major events and all major issues in the revolutionary struggle of the Filipino people in more than four decades are presented.
There is a previous biographical work that I did with the German Dr. Rainer Werning in 1988. The advantage of AHTW is that it comes later, after more than a decade in 2004. The book therefore has a good coverage of so many struggles that I have plunged into to serve the revolutionary struggle of the Filipino people for national liberation and democracy. These also include my struggles abroad against the attempts of the US imperialists and Filipino reactionaries to exclude me from the successful human rights litigation against the Marcos estate, to prevent me from being recognized as a political refugee and subsequently from being legally admitted as refugee and to keep me in the terrorist blacklist for imaginary and unspecified acts of terrorism in violation of my fundamental rights.
I consider the campaigns of character assassination and attempts at physical assassination against me as good measures of the fact that I continue to serve the Filipino people well enough.
In conclusion, I wish to thank you for your solidarity and support.###