The Philippines Revolution has gained considerable ground in recent years. On one level the Communist Party/New Peoples Army has managed to maintain control of huge swathes of countryside.
On another level, thousands of “ex”-communists and sympathisers have used “legal” organisations and political parties to infiltrate the cities, unions, universities and Parliament itself.
President Arroyo’s government is fighting back hard. The latest move has been to accuse senior communists and ex-communists of mass murder.
From The Belmont Club
In August, 2006 local residents and former NPA rebels led government authorities to “The Garden” on an isolated ridge in barrio Kaulisihan, Inopacan town, Leyte province, where the skeletal remains of hundreds of victims of internal Communist Party purges from 1985 were dug up with the help of K-9 units and forensics experts.
Former company commander of the NPA’s Southern Leyte front committee, Zacarias Piedad, and platoon leader Leonardo Tanaid, testified before the media last September in Manila, that he personally saw the signed orders of CPP Chairman Jose Maria Sison, Central Committee member Satur Ocampo, and NDF spokesman Luis Jalandoni to rid the organization of government spies and infiltrators, who were then brought before an NPA kangaroo court then summarily knifed and hacked to death, then buried in “The Garden”.
It is one of the many “killing fields” that not even the CPP-NPA has been able to deny it created as a result of paranoia that the they had been penetrated by government agents and then engaged in bloody pogroms against suspected comrades, reportedly resulting in thousands killed and few if any spies found….present-day Bayan Muna party list representative Satur Ocampo joins with a certain “Committee Defend” of the CPP Central Committee in Utrecht, the Netherlands in damage control over the discoveries in Leyte by claiming the mass grave is a fake.
But now that Ocampo, Sison, Jalandoni and 50 other CPP NPA NDF leaders have been charged with rebellion and warrants of arrest for mass murder have been issued against them by a Regional Trial Court in Hilongos, Leyte, But even the Interpol may soon be after them. Other officials of the communist movement’s aboveground front organizations may also be charged in connection with an ongoing investigation into extrajudicial killings by the CPP NPA in Bongabong, Nueva Ecija.
Jose Maria Sison
In 1968, Sison was founder of the Maoist oriented Communist Party of the Philippines. He was arrested in 1977, allegedly heavily tortured and held incommunicado for several years.
He was released in 1986 after the fall of the Marcos government. Though intending to rejoin the underground, he stranded in Europe when the Aquino government cancelled his passport while he was on a speaking tour. He applied for and was granted political asylum in The Netherlands, where he has been based since.
He is the chief political consultant of the CPP’s “legal” political wing the National Democratic Front and in 2005 was elected chairman of the International League of Peoples’ Struggles-a worldwide network of Maoist organisations.
Satur Ocampo
A founding member of the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1968.
Ocampo was arrested in 1974 and was one of the longest-held and allegedly heaviest-tortured political prisoners during martial law. In 1985, following a vigorous campaign by various human rights organizations for his release, he was allowed to vote in the elections. He escaped that same day and rejoined the revolutionary underground.
In 1986 he surfaced as spokesperson of the National Democratic Front peace negotiating panel but was arrested again. After his release in the 1990s he became active in the “legal left”. In 2001 the leftist party-list group Bayan Muna fielded him as its first nominee; the group topped the party-list elections. He is now on his second term as a Bayan Muna representative.
Luis Jalandoni
Long time head head of the CPP’s National Democratic Front. A former priest, who joined the Communist Party and fought as a guerilla with the New People’s Army. His wife and fellow NDF member, Coni Ledesma was a former nun, as well as one of the founders of the Christians for National Liberation, the underground organization for radical priests and nuns.
Arrested and released in 1974, Jalandoni was active in union struggles in the sugar and garment industries. He was also prominent in the National Democratic Front.
In 1976 the CPP sent the Jalandoni’s to Europe to work on international laiason work for the party. Jalandoni helped organise overseas Filipinos and built solidarity organizations all over Europe. Officially representing the NDF, Jalandoni worked with national liberation movements, political parties, “people’s” organizations, governments and government agencies, building up a huge network of support for the revolution.
Based in the Netherlands, Jalandoni works closely with Sison and chairs the negotiating panel-dealing with the Philippines government.
Note; Both Sison and Jalandoni toured NZ in the late 1980s. They were hosted by the Workers Communist League controlled, Philippines Solidarity Network.
Because I don’t think they are equally guilty.
While the AFP is no doubt far from blameless, the CPP/NPA is by far the guiltier side.
There is also the fact that they actually started the war.
I applaud you for speaking out against the murderous CPP but I do notice you never ever mention the terrible extra judicial killings and other abuses being committed by the Arroyo regime.
Why don’t you give equal time to both?