Jose Maria Sison
Jose Maria Sison | |
|---|---|
 Portrait of Comrade Joma. | |
| Born |
Jose Maria Canlas Sison 8 February 1939 Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, Philippines |
| Died |
16 December 2022 Utrecht, Netherlands |
| Nationality | Filipino |
| Ideology |
Marxism–Leninism–Maoism Anti-revisionism |
| Political party | CPP-NPA-NDFP |
Jose Maria Sison (8 February 1939 – 16 December 2022), also known as Joma, was a Filipino revolutionary, writer, poet, professor, and founding member of the Communist Party of the Philippines from 1968 until his death in 2022. He founded the New People’s Army and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and waged a people's war in the Philippines since 1969. He has been in exile in the Netherlands since 1988 and has led the party from there for the rest of his life.
Early Life and Education
Jose Maria Sison was born to a landlord political family in February 8, 1939, in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur. Some of his relatives were killed by the HUKBALAHAP (early Filipino Marxist-Leninist guerilla movement) due to their upper-class landlord status. He learned more about the “Huks”, as they were colloquially called, from Ilocos farm workers. He once was supportive of populist and anti-imperialist politicians. He claimed have gotten interested in Communism from reading an anti-communist book in his Jesuit High School.[1] Upon graduating from the University of the Philippines in 1959, he studied in Indonesia and upon returning to the Philippines, he became a Professor at the University of the Philippines-Diliman of literature and later political science. He co-founded a youth organization called Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth) in 1964, where it stood against the Vietnam War, bureaucrat capitalism, and semi-feudalism.
Refounding of the Communist Party and Martial Law
Exile and Later Life
Criticism
- He supported North Korea and the Workers Party of Korea as a "Marxist-Leninist party that has victoriously led the Korean people and state in frustrating imperialist aggression and in achieving socialist revolution and construction.".
- He supported other revisionist countries like Cuba, Vietnam, Angola, and Nicaragua and even capitalist countries like Venezuela.
- He supported Brezhnevite revisionism upon his release from prison in 1987
- He presents himself as a centrist in regards to his support of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution
See also
References
- ↑ Rev Left Radio (October 31, 2023). "Jose Maria Sison: In Conversation with Comrade Joma". YouTube.