Get Joma Sison

“Making Sison and his clique accountable is long overdue and the long list of atrocities against them is evidence of true instances of EJK and summary executions.

“An

estimated 7,000 NPA fighters and their supporters were reported tortured and killed by the CPP during their series of purges aimed at eliminating moles or undercover agents in the rebel ranks.

The court order for the arrest of Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) Jose Maria “Joma” Sison, his wife Juliet and other communist leaders, including those earlier released to act as negotiators in the terminated peace negotiations, is expected to be part of the long list of such issuances that Sison and company have evaded as most of them reside as political refugees abroad.

Last Thursday, a Manila court ordered the arrest of the CPP bosses over the Inopacan massacre that happened in the 1980s wherein 300 Leyte residents were massacred by New People’s Army (NPA) rebels, which happened after a purge in the rebel movement.

A purge is ordered when the CPP leadership considers that its organization and, in the case of the Leyte massacre a whole community, was infiltrated by government agents.

The allegations of extrajudicial killings (EJK) should best apply to such purges where summary executions are carried out by the NPA on mere suspicions or whims of its leaders.

An estimated 7,000 NPA fighters and their supporters were reported tortured and killed by the CPP during their series of purges aimed at eliminating moles or undercover agents in the rebel ranks.

The cleansing went by the names Oplan “Ahos,” Oplan “Zombie,” Oplan “Olympia,” Oplan “Kadena de Amor” and Oplan “Venereal Disease” based on documents obtained from the communist movement. Thousands of the victims of the purge remain unrecovered as they are believed buried in hidden mass graves.

Some of the rebels included in the purge — the military had identified 625 of them thus far — were included in the UN List of Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances that rights groups, which are believed CPP legal fronts such as Karapatan, blame state forces to being the perpetrators.

The recruitment of reliable guerillas thus became the main concern of the movement.

The CPP had formed its own schools called Salugpungan as part of efforts to assure the revolutionary movement of hardcore ideologues and to secure its ranks against infiltrators.

Through the schools, children are molded to become perfect agents of the communist cause. Along with this, the rebels have intensified their recruitment and indoctrination of students in hotbeds of radicalization, which are mostly state-run universities.

Based on government figures, some 8,635 school kids recruited since September 2015 are being sought by their parents. Many of them may end up forever missing, since many have been slain in encounters in the hinterlands.

The CPP-NPA is listed as a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom, European Union, Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines. What is strange is that Sison and his cabal continue to enjoy protection from European countries apparently since there is no legal recognition of the CPP-NPA-National Democratic Front of the Philippine (NDFP) as a terror group.

The task of pursuing the court process falls on the lap of the Department of Justice since a case was already filed with the Manila Regional Trial Court last March calling for the designation of the NPA as a terrorist organization as provided under Section 2 of the Human Security Act of 2007.

The government submitted to the court a list of over 600 personalities, which included Sison and other CPP leaders and NDFP consultants, to be labeled as terrorists. The petition was filed following the termination of the peace talks between the government and the CPP in November 2017.

Making Sison and his clique accountable is long overdue and the long list of atrocities against them is evidence of true instances of EJK and summary executions, which are instead being used against President Rody Duterte by his political opponents of the Red and yellow hues.

The accountability of Sison predated Rody’s term, which makes his continued efforts to flaunt the law and his ongoing efforts to destabilize the government as proof of the lethargic movement of the wheels of justice in the country.