Philippine revolutionary victory in EU court

By Caleb T. Maupin
Published Jul 22, 2007 9:30 PM
Jose Maria Sison, a lifelong revolutionary and currently chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), who is now exiled in the Netherlands, won a victory in a European court July 11 that will allow him access to his funds, which had been frozen since December 2001.

In a statement issued on July 13, Sison wrote: “The judgment of the European Court of First Instance (ECFI) annulling the decision of the Council of the European Union (EU) to put me in the ‘terrorist’ blacklist is a victory for the cause of justice. It is not merely my personal victory. It is a victory for all the people, my panel of lawyers, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines as intervener and the International Committee-Defend.”

Sison, an intellectual also known for his literary works, discovered Marxism-Leninism and socialism as tools that could lead to the liberation of his people. While living under a U.S.-backed dictatorship, he helped to establish a new Communist Party in the Philippines.

In 2001 the U.S State Department declared that Sison, the CPP and the New Peoples Army (NPA) were all terroristic and that the Philippines was “the second front of the war on terror.” On Dec. 27, 2001, a European court deprived Sison of his funds and virtually confined him to the Netherlands.

Sison now lives half a world away from his home country, the nation which he has devoted his life to liberating. Labeled a “terrorist,” he continues to battle the U.S. and various European governments as well as the regime of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines, which seeks his elimination.

Sison has suffered horrifically at the hands of imperialism and its local puppets. At one point he was captured by U.S-backed forces directed by Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos, a dictator overthrown in 1986. Sison had spent eight years chained to a bed in a small solitary confinement cell during the Marcos regime.

While Sison is a revolutionary and the organizations he is associated with aim to liberate the Philippines by revolutionary means, he argues that he is no terrorist and has facts to prove it. In the same statement mentioned above, he writes:

“In the Philippines, I have been repeatedly cleared of criminal charges. At the fall of the Marcos fascist regime in 1986, I was cleared of the charges of rebellion and subversion. In 1992 the charge of subversion that had been trumped up in 1988 was nullified. In 1994 the charge of multiple murder arising from the Plaza Miranda bombing was dismissed by the Manila prosecutors as something based on speculation. In 1998 the Philippine secretary of justice issued a certification that there were no pending criminal charges against me.

“In 2003, the Arroyo regime started to fabricate charges of rebellion and common crimes against me. But in a recent decision early this month, the Philippine Supreme Court has rendered null and void the identical false allegations of rebellion against more than 50 accused, including the Batasan Six, some NDFP legal consultants and myself.”

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