Sison, Alejano deny working together to unseat Duterte

FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, in his arrival speech at the Francisco Bangoy International Airport in Davao City on September 8, 2018, runs down the different agreements that the Philippines have reached during the official visits to the State of Israel and Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. ACE MORANDANTE/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria “Joma” Sison and Magdalo Representative Gary Alejano belied the claim of President Rodrigo Duterte that their groups are conniving with each other to remove the latter from his office.

Duterte, in his televised tête-à-tête with Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo on Tuesday, September 11, said he has evidence to prove that the communists and the Magdalo group are conspiring to overthrow him. The President said he has the ‘conversation’ from a foreign country ‘sympathetic’ to him.

Belying this claim, Sison said there are no talks between the CPP and Magdalo group of Senator Antonio Trillanes IV or the Liberal Party (LP).

“Duterte is lying and bluffing by claiming that there are recorded conversations provided by a foreign government,” Sison said in his statement on Tuesday.

“I know Duterte long enough as a congenital liar and an incorrigible political swindler,” he added.

The communist leader dared the Chief Excutive to release to the public the evidence he was saying.

“The experts will easily expose the fakery if he dares to present anything. This could be something like his invented foreign bank accounts of Trillanes,” he stressed.

But while clarifying that there is no discussion between him or the CPP with Trillanes’s group or the LP regarding the alleged ouster plot, Sison said “it is no secret that the CPP wishes to promote a broad united front of patriotic forces and encourage the broad masses of the people in their millions to rise up and oust Duterte, as [former President Ferdinand] Marcos and [former President Joseph “Erap”] Estrada were ousted in 1986 and 2001, respectively.”

The CPP founding chairman also noted the two ‘currents’ that will lead to his removal from office — his ‘deteriorating’ physical and mental health and his ‘abusive’ moves towards establishing a “fascist dictatorship under the pretext of Charter change (Cha-cha) to federalism.”

Magdalo Party-list Representative Gary Alejano also denied the President’s claim.

“The allegation of our involvement in the destabilization is purely a product of imagination and paranoia of the Duterte administration,” Alejano said also on Tuesday.

“This is only meant to divert the attention of the people from the present economic woes they themselves have failed to address. If there is someone destabilizing the present government, they should not look beyond themselves for they are the ones destabilizing it,” he added.

The lawmaker stressed that the Magdalo group is only performing its mandate as opposition members under the check and balance of the country’s democratic government to “strengthen democracy and not to destabilize it.”

Duterte in his speech upon his arrival from his official visits to Israel and Jordan on Saturday told the public to watch out for his critics’ alleged move to remove him from office, which he said will go into a “higher gear” next month.

The LP, through former Quezon City Representative Erin Tañada, the party’s Vice President for External Affairs earlier denied Duterte’s claim in an interview with GMA News.

Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo also previously made it clear that the LP, the party she chairs, has no plot to oust the President.

“[W]ala kaming koneksyon sa Communist Party of the Philippines, ni nag-usap, wala man lang kahit anong klaseng pag-uusap. Alam naman natin iyong parang role ng Communist Party of the Philippines dito… sa lipunan, sila nag-e-exist sila independently of any political party. Maraming paniniwala na hindi pareho (We have no connection or discussion with the Communist Party of the Philippines. We all know that the Communist Party of the Philippines in our society exists independent of any political party. There are a lot of beliefs which are not the same as us),” Robredo clarified in her weekly radio show, BISErbisong Leni, last Sunday.