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Sison denies report of CPP revamp
By Delfin Mallari Jr.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Breaking News / Nation
http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/nation/view/20081231-180778/Sison-denies-report-of-CPP-revamp
Posted date: December 31, 2008
LUCENA CITY – Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison has
denounced the report that he had been removed as head of the revolutionary
movement for living a luxurious life abroad while his local comrades were having
a hard time in the country.
"The story is malicious because more than anything else it is intended to slander
me as one enjoying himself in luxury abroad," Sison told the Philippine Daily Inquirer
in an email statement sent from his base in Utrecht, The Netherlands Wednesday
morning.
Sison reacted to the story by a national broadsheet saying that the government is
verifying intelligence reports that the CPP founder had been ousted as chief of the
revolutionary movement and was supposedly replaced by couple Wilma and Benito
Tiamzon.
Reports tagged Wilma as allegedly the CPP's secretary general, while Benito as the
party's acting chair since Sison left the country in 1987. The story further alleged
that some disgruntled members of the CPP-Central Committee want to strip Sison
of any policy-making power.
Sison said he is already satisfied with being described in historical terms as the
founding chairman of the CPP, chief political consultant of the National Democratic
Front of the Philippines and chair of the International League of Peoples' Struggle.
The NDFP is the political arm of the revolutionary movement.
In a follow-up question, Sison was asked on what he can say about the Tiamzon
couple as comrades in the movement. He has yet to answer the query.
Sison accused National Security Adviser (NSA) Norberto Gonzales and National
Security Council deputy director general Avelino Razon Jr. of orchestrating the
"malicious lies" that were used as basis in the media report.
"Gonzales and Razon look stupid by claiming that I have been ousted on the basis
of the long-running statement of fact that the CPP leadership is in the Philippines,"
he said.
He added: "The lie is made by the same officials responsible for feeding the Dutch
authorities with false information and false witnesses in order to deprive me of job
opportunities and social benefits (including living allowance, insurance and old age
pension) and to have me arrested and imprisoned on the fabricated charge of
murder."
The military intelligence has long been claiming that Sison was the chair of the
CPP Central Committee and was using the aliases "Amado Guerrero" and "Armando
Liwanag." Sison has denied the allegations.
Sison reiterated the repeated declaration made by NDFP chief negotiator Luis
Jalandoni since 1980 that the leadership of the CPP and its military wing, the
New People’s Army, are in the Philippines and not in Utrecht.
"It is not only Louie (Jalandoni) who says so. I also say so," he stressed.
Sison said: "The ruling Arroyo couple, the NSA officials, and other officials of the
Arroyo regime are in the Philippines, unlike me who is abroad under conditions of
deprivation and constant threat of assassination and arrest."
"But they are evil even as they are in the Philippines because they are there to
oppress and exploit the Filipino people. They are the ones who live lives of luxury
at the expense of the people whom they rob and victimize every day," claimed
the CPP founder.
The government has long been trumpeting that the 69-year old Filipino communist
guru has been living a luxurious life in Utrecht, oftentimes spending evenings in
disco dances sipping expensive wines and liquors in the company of his fellow rebel
exiles.
Sison vehemently denied the allegation saying he now lives in deprivation after the
Dutch authorities prevented him from working and deprived him of social benefits.
The CPP celebrated its 40th founding anniversary last Dec. 26 where they unveiled
a five-year plan to step up their insurgency and move closer to their goal of toppling
the government to establish a Maoist state. The communist guerillas have been
conducting guerilla warfare for the past four decades to defeat the government.
On Dec. 26, 1968, Sison, then a state university professor, set up the revitalized
CPP with Maoist-oriented ideology. Four months later, the CPP established the NPA
in a remote village in Central Luzon.
Arrested during the martial rule of deposed President Ferdinand Marcos, Sison was
imprisoned until his release in 1986 at the start of the government of then President
Corazon Aquino.
The following year, the Aquino regime cancelled Sison's passport while on a speaking
engagement tour in Europe. He filed for political asylum in the Netherlands in the
1980s but his request was rejected by the Dutch authorities.
However, the Dutch court ruled that he could not be sent back to the Philippines
because his life would be in danger.
Since 1987, Sison lives in self-exile in Utrecht along with other top officials of the
revolutionary movement.
He was arrested on August 28, 2007 in Utrecht on charges of giving orders, from
the Netherlands, to murder his former comrades in the Philippines, Romulo Kintanar
and Arturo Tabara in 2003 and 2006. The murder was claimed by the NPA itself in
an official CPP publication.
.
The court ruled however that there was not enough evidence to prove Sison
ordered the commission of the crimes.
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