No Joma arrival via Clark airport
CLARK FREEPORT, Pampanga —News spread the other day that Jose Ma. “Joma” Sison, founding chairman of the central committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines ( CPP), had anonymously flown into the country via the Clark International Airport (CIA).
The news even provided a little more detail: Sison arrived last Jan. 20, using the name Renato Malaya.
Officials of the Clark International Airport Corp. (CIAC) were swamped with calls on the report yesterday. But after records of arrivals at the airport last January and this month were thoroughly checked, neither the name of Renato Malaya nor Jose Ma. Sison surfaced, said CIAC vice president for operations Reynaldo Catacutan.
The rumor on Sison’s supposed arrival was apparently triggered by a forum in pinoyexchange. com wherein someone posted a thread claiming that he heard from a radio program of one Prof. Erik San Juan that the communist leader had indeed arrived via Clark.
Armed Forces spokesman Col. Arnulfo Burgos also dismissed the report, saying that only yesterday morning a Manila-based radio station was able to interview Sison who is still in the Netherlands where he sought political asylum during the term of former President Corazon Aquino.
In an interview with radio station dzrh yesterday, Sison denied that he has returned to the Philippines, alleging that the rumor is being peddled by military elements sympathetic to former President Gloria Macapagal-arroyo.
Sison said he is still in the Netherlands and even attended a speaking engagement in Amsterdam last Sunday.
“From what I heard, there are pro- Arroyo and pro-aquino factions in the military who are at odds with each other. That’s how I interpret it,” he said.
Sison said it is also possible that those spreading the rumor want to deceive and demoralize the communist forces.
He accused the groups of former Defense secretary Norberto Gonzales and his critic Rep. Pastor Alcover of disseminating false information about him.
Gonzales is the founding chairman of the Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista ng Pilipinas, while Alcover represents the anti-communist group Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy.