Aging communist leader Sison eyes homecoming this year
UTRECHT — In one corner of this small secondfloor apartment unit here are workstations with multiple computer monitors — one set for Jose Maria Sison and another for his wife.
From this working-class neighborhood by the Old Rhine river, thousands of kilometers away from home, Sison leads a revolutionary movement he began nearly half a century ago when he established the Communist Party of the Philippines.
At 79, he said he had learned to harness the power of the "digital system," thanks to his tech-savvy wife Julie De Lima, who introduced him to social media.
Facebook serves as his "barometer" of political events back in his home country where, he insists, the struggle is as relevant as before.
It allows him, he said, to reach out and influence more people as some sort of an online "newsmaker" through a technology not available to Lenin and other communist leaders in the past.
But it's also where critics portray him as someone who has opted to enjoy life abroad while comrades do the actual battle back home.
"Of course, I would prefer to be with compatriots," he told ABSCBN News. "It was not my choice to get political asylum here."
Sison described himself as a "recognized political refugee" but with no "legal admission" in The Netherlands where he has been stuck since 1987 when the Philippine government cancelled his passport. "I have no residence but not even the Dutch government can kick me out here," he said.
But with no social benefits, he said he's dependent on his wife, a Dutch resident, and constributions from friends for his upkeep. He is regarded as a "private charity case" in a nearby university hospital where he was confined several times because of pneumonia. He also suffers from Sweet's syndrome, a painful skin condition.
Confinement forced him to miss portions of the informal talks with a team of government negotiators led by Hernani Braganza here early this month.
During the interview with ABS-CBN News, Sison appeared occasionally short-winded, his wife periodically checking on him from the other end of their book-stacked, 75-square-meter flat.
President Rodrigo Duterte, his one-time student, has repeatedly asked him to return to the Philippines to continue peace negotiations. But Sison said this would mean giving up the "advantages of negotiating in a foreign neutral venue," which is Norway.