Sison needs to ‘disengage self from fantasy’: Palace

RALLY VS. CPP-NPA. Southern Police District (SPD) Director Nolasco Bathan puts a spray paint on the caricature of Jose Ma. Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), during a rally against the communist group participated in by almost 300 civilians including former rebels in Baclaran, Parañaque City on Thursday (December 26, 2019). The group condemned the atrocities of the CPP-NPA, which is marking its 51st anniversary today. (PNA photo Avito C. Dalan)

MANILA — Malacañang on Friday expressed dismay that Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison’s “hallucination” continues when he claimed that President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration is “going downhill to hell.”

Sison’s latest claim against the Duterte government merely demonstrates that he is “really living in an illusory world he has created for himself,” Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement.

“His remarks to his cadres on the occasion of the CPP anniversary entitled, ‘Duterte regime goes downhill as revolutionary movement rises,’ is proof of his hallucination,” Panelo said.

“It is his movement that is on downhill while the Duterte presidency keeps on rising and the surge in his popularity and trust rating is a resounding proof,” the Palace official added.

As the CPP marked its 51st year of insurgency on December 26, Sison claimed that the “traitorous, tyrannical, murderous, corrupt and deceptive” Duterte regime has “aggravated the chronic crisis of the ruling system.”

The communist founder also alleged that the current administration is escalating oppression and exploitation of people, prompting them to wage people’s war and all forms of resistance.

He, nevertheless, believed that Duterte’s administration is “going downhill to hell and cannot find enough relief from its imperialist masters to overcome the rising revolutionary movement of the Filipino people.”

Sison’s remarks came even as he expressed openness to Duterte’s call for the resumption of peace talks between the national government and the CPP’s political wing, the National Democratic Front (NDF) in a bid to end the decades-long insurgency of its armed component, the New People’s Army (NPA).

Sison should stop living in a fantasy, as it was likely for him to cause harm to others, Panelo said.

“Mr. Sison must disengage himself from his fantasy before his illusions develop into something medically perilous,” the Palace official said.

Sison blinded by his ‘comfortable, luxurious’ self-exile

Sison, who has been in self-exile in the Netherlands since 1987, apparently failed to see the progress in the Philippines under Duterte’s watch because he was already blinded by his “comfortable and luxurious” life in Amsterdam.

Panelo added that Sison seemed to be unaware that many of the communist rebels are realizing that their past struggles and sacrifices “have led to nothing except the shedding of bloodshed among and between Filipinos, family members being separated from each other, productive lives of young, ideal and even brilliant minds wasted on the hills, and always on the run fighting a lost cause abandoned even by those who advanced it.”

“His decade-long comfortable and luxurious self-exile in Europe has placed blinders in his eyes hence he could not see the transformation of society initiated and propelled by the strong-willed leadership of the former Mayor of Davao City,” he said.

“The fact is, a growing number of their members are turning a new leaf in their lives as they begin to go back to the mainstream of society,” Panelo added.

Panelo also belied Sison’s claim of “worsening” conditions of underdevelopment, high unemployment, low income, soaring prices of basic commodities and mass poverty in the Philippines.

To dispute Sison’s remarks, Panelo noted that foreign financial organizations foresee the Philippines as the “fastest growing economy in the Asia-Pacific in 2020.”

The Palace official also cited that employment hits a 14-year high, high inflation is “now a thing of the past,” and nearly six million Filipinos have already been lifted out of poverty.

Panelo also reacted to Sison’s demand from the government to suspend the military and police operations against the communist rebels.

The holiday ceasefire between the state forces and the communists, which took effect on Dec. 23, will expire at 11:59 p.m. on January 7, 2020.

The Palace official found it satirical for Sison to issue a threat to lift the holiday truce with the government troops, considering that it was the NPA insurgents who are violating the temporary ceasefire deal.

“He threatens to cancel the ceasefire if these orders are not shown to the NDF panel. These orders are not forthcoming, Sison and his comrades can proceed with the cancellation of the ceasefire and the President will oblige them,” Panelo said.

“In the first place, they have violated their own declared unilateral ceasefire. So there is not even logic in their threat,” he added.

Accept one-on-one talk with Duterte

Following Sison’s remarks, it was not surprising that Duterte, who was his “serious student of political history,” slammed the former’s “pontifications of the ageing and ailing revolutionary,” Panelo said.

“Such a pitiful and tragic ending of someone whose brilliance, used to be revered by the youth of the seventies, has since then been dulled, by failing to embrace the realities of world politics and to accept the comatose state of a dying ideology,” he said.

“Even their former allies are distancing themselves from them. The European Union which has been releasing funds to the local communist fronts has vowed to stop its financial aid after their money-making scams have been unmasked,” Panelo added.

Panelo said that instead of criticizing the government, Sison should accept the President’s challenge for a one-on-one dialogue in the Philippines.

Duterte’s plan for a meeting with Sison came following the series of attacks by the NPA rebels against the government forces despite the implementation of holiday truce and amid intent to revive the peace negotiations.

Should Sison refuse to hold a dialogue with Duterte, the communist founder only proves that he is insincere to revive the peace talks, Panelo stressed.

“We dare Mr. Sison to come to the Philippines for a one-on-one meeting with the President to forge a lasting peace agreement. (President Duterte) guarantees that he will not be arrested upon his arrival and after the meeting he can freely leave for Netherlands when he so desires,” the Palace official said.

“His refusal to have a personal dialogue with his former student in the Philippines betrays his insincerity,” he added.

Duterte, who used to have good relations with the communists, was forced to formally scrap the national government’s peace talks with NDF consultants through Proclamation 360 signed on Nov. 23, 2017.

The Chief Executive also signed Proclamation 375, tagging the CPP-NPA as a terrorist group.

The CPP-NPA has also been branded as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.