Joma blasts intrigues

From the Manila Standard Today (May 8): Joma blasts intrigues

‘Govt out to sow rift with new peace tack’

Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison has accused the government of sowing intrigue to hide the real reason why it unilaterally scuttled the 22-year-old peace talks even as he rejected the “new approach” supposedly being crafted by the Aquino administration.

In a statement emailed to the Manila Standard on Tuesday, Sison admitted that he was simply a political consultant of the National Democratic Front and the decisions involving the Communist Party and its New People’s Army were now being made by CPP chairman Benito Tiamzon and his wife Wilma.

Sison accused the Aquino administration of sowing a rift with the “much-ballyhooed new approach” that involved the escalation of military suppression and psychological warfare, the ending of peace negotiations which would be replaced with “fake” localized talks and surrenders.

Little is known of Benito Tiamzon aside from being a sociology graduate of the University of the Philippines who was a member of the CPP Political Bureau, or politburo, in the late 1980s and later gained control of the CPP central committee.

On the other hand, Sison, who was supposedly CPP chairman before his arrest in 1977, fled to Utrecht in The Netherlands shortly after he was released from detention in 1987 by President Corazon Aquino, the mother of the incumbent President.

Sison said presidential peace adviser Secretary Teresita Deles and peace panel chairman Alexander Padilla were “presumptuous and ridiculous when they talked, as if they had the power and right to choose the negotiators and consultants of the National Democratic Front.”

“[Deles and Padilla] sink to the bottom of the garbage dump of intrigues when they make false claims about my relations with the Tiamzons, whom I know to be excellent and sincere revolutionaries worthy of the highest respect,” Sison said.

Padilla earlier said the Tiamzons were now in charge of the CPP-NPA, and that this was one of the reasons why the administration is studying whether the “new approach” would still involve talking to Sison in the future through another platform and framework.

“I am only the Chief Political Consultant of the panel. Since my arrest by the Marcos dictatorship in 1977, I have never claimed to be an official of the CPP Central Committee and the NDFP National Council,” Sison said.

“The intrigues that Deles, Padilla and [presidential spokesman Edwin] Lacierda are generating in the mass media are a desperate and futile attempt to obscure the real reasons why the regime is ending the peace negotiations,” he said.

Sison said “the Aquino regime wants to scrap The Hague Joint Declaration and all subsequent agreements and to demonstrate that it does not have to negotiate with the NDFP because it depends totally on the violent and deceptive means under the US-designed Oplan Bayanihan.”

The Hague Declaration was signed by the government and the NDF on Sept. 01, 1992 and provided for negotiations to resolve the 44-year-old communist insurgency while Oplan Bayanihan is the Aquino administration’s counter-insurgency plan for the military.

“Second, the Aquino regime is willing to talk to the NDFP only for the purpose of seeking the surrender and pacification of the revolutionary forces and people through an indefinite ceasefire that permanently evades the necessity of addressing the roots of the civil war through comprehensive agreements on basic social, economic and political reforms,” Sision said.

But the CPP founder lamented that the NDF had already been tested and proven on a “special track” that the Aquino regime was not willing to cooperate or have a truce with the NDF, even if it were based on a general declaration of common intent for the benefit of the people.

“Third, the Aquino regime is allowing its corrupt bureaucrats and military officers to carry out fake localized talks and fake surrenders and to pocket privately lots of money from the Conditional Cash Transfer and PAMANA funds, which amount to more than P45 billion. The Commission on Audit has already exposed the misappropriation of such funds,” Sison said.

“If the Aquino regime continues to be intransigent, its three remaining years is not too long to let pass. The puppet, exploitative, corrupt, brutal and mendacious character of the regime will further weaken the ruling system of big comprador and landlords,” Sison said.

He said the Aquino administration “pays no serious attention to the basic problems of the Filipino people but is overdependent on mere publicity stunts, rigged poll surveys and pre-programmed elections by Smartmatic.”

Sison reiterated that Luis Jalandoni, chairman of the NDF negotiating panel, and the other members and consultants of the NDF panel enjoyed the confidence of all the members of the CPP Central Committee and the NDF National Council.

“His panel continues to carry the authorization of the CPP and NDFP and is ever ready to resume the formal talks in the peace negotiations,” Sison said.

http://manilastandardtoday.com/2013/05/08/joma-blasts-intrigues/