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. 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

On December 26, 1968, Sison, along with his followers, refounded the Communist Party of the Philippines in the line of Marxism - Leninism - Mao Zedong Thought in opposition to the pro-Soviet revisionist line of Jesus Lava and Jose Lava. This event became known as the First Great Rectification Movement. The Old Communist Party of the Philippines would fall into further revisionism and is now called PKP-1930 (Communist Party of the Philippines - 1930) and regularly sides with the Government against the new Communist Party, which grew in organization size and popularity. The New People's Army was formed on March 26 1969, and formally proclaimed a People's War in the same year against the Marcos government. The NPA continued to receive aid from the People's Republic of China under Mao Zedong until 1976.

The US-backed fascist dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr. used events such as the First Quarter Storm of 1970 (mass protests of progressive forces in opposition to US imperialism and capitalism), the Liberal Party Plaza Miranda Bombing of 1971, and the attacks of Marcos-allied politicians such as Juan Ponce Enrile to justify withdrawing the writ to habeas corpus, closing congress, and proclaiming martial law in 1972. Over 25,000 people, including students, youth, intellectuals, etc., were victims of imprisoning and forced disappearances under Martial Law. Jose Maria Sison, along with many CPP-NPA leaders, was arrested in 1977 and imprisoned until 1986 where he faced torture by the fascist police guards. He wrote a lot while in prison, including Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism: A Primer, which was smuggled by his wife, Julia de Lima, in 1982.

Martial Law formally ended in 1982, but Marcos and his family continued to hold full political power until 1986 after the liberal EDSA People's Power Revolution, aided by liberal moderate anti-Marcos politicans and members of the Roman Catholic Church, forced the Marcos Family out of power and into exile in Hawaii. Corazon Aquino, wife of the liberal Benigno S. “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. (whose father was a Japanese Collaborator) succeeded Marcos as the first female president of the Philippines.

Jose Maria Sison, along with many political prisoners, were released in 1986. Soon after release, the CPP-NPA-NDFP attempted to pursue peace negotiations with the liberal Aquino government, even achieving a ceasefire. But after the Mendiola Massacre of 1987, wherein worker protesters were massacred by police forces, peace negotiations broke down and the New People's Army continued the armed struggle and resumed strategic operations against government forces and authorities.

Exile and Later Life

Whilst on a European Lecture tour in 1988 in the Netherlands, he was informed that his passport had been revoked and that charges had been filed against him under the Anti-Subversion Law of the Philippines. Although these cases were dropped, he sought political asylum and by 1992, became a political refugee.

During the Second Great Rectification Movement in 1992, the Communist Party of the Philippines proclaimed their ideological line as Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. During the movement, they purged the party of left deviationists, opportunists and “rejectionists”.

Jose Maria Sison would be a co-founder and Chairperson emeritus of the International League of People's Struggle, an international organization consisting of progressive and worker groups from around the world.

In 2002, the Philippine old state under Gloria Macapagal Arroyo called upon the United States and the European Union to call Sison and the CPP “terrorist organizations”. Sison was incarcerated by the Dutch government in 2007 under murder charges, which were dropped in 2008 under pressure from progressive groups.

Rodrigo Roa Duterte, a former student of Sison, promised the resuming of peace negotiations with him. But upon Duterte’s election as Philippine President in 2016, he instead formed the NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Communist Armed Conflict), pursued a catastrophic war on drugs, introduced a policy of red-tagging attacks on legal activists and progressive forces, proclaimed an “Anti-Terrorism” Law in 2020, and declared the CPP-NPA-NDF as a “Terrorist Organization”.

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

• National Democracy