Jose Maria Sison has admitted that, despite being the founding chairman of the 49-year-old Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), he does not exercise control over the Lefist group’s armed component, the New People’s Army (NPA), which has continued to engage government forces in armed conflict despite ongoing peace negotiations.
In an interview with Manila Bulletin (MB) editors Monday night through Skype from Utrecht, Netherlands where he has been in exile for 31 years, Sison confirmed that “no one in Utrecht has ever claimed to control the revolutionary forces and people in the Philippines.”
“No one in Utrecht can give orders to the CPP, NPA, NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines) in the Philippines,” said Sison, who is currently the senior political consultant of the NDFP.
The Philippine Government (GRP) and NDFP are in the thick of peace negotiations that were resumed in Oslo, Norway last August, and will be on the fifth round of formal talks in Noordwick ann-see in the Netherlands from May 26 to June 2.
“The collective leading organs of the CPP, NPA, NDFP, which are based in the Philippines, are the principal of the NDFP negotiating panel. They give orders and instructions to the NDFP Negotiating Panel,” maintained Sison, who is more popularly known as “Joma.”
Sison, 78, said that the leaders of the CPP, NPA and NDFP “give orders to the NDFP negotiating panel and to the NPA in the battlefield.” (Rocky Nazareno)