I and other National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace
consultants, and other political prisoners here at the Camp Bagong Diwa, join
many others in militantly and heartily greeting Comrade Jose Maria “Joema”
Sison on his 75th birthday this February 8, and most especially his 55 years of
service to the people and the revolutionary movement.
For more than five decades now and running, he has contributed so much of
value to the socio-economic, cultural, political and ideological education and
struggle this far, not only of the revolutionary forces and people in this
country, but also in the world.
His contributions have been and continue to be of great lead and help to a
multitude of progressive and revolutionary forces.
They have,in particular, been of great lead and help to me and continue to
do so.
In mid-1971, disgusted at finding out after a year of working with its
management team, that the only company I had aspired to work for was supposed
to serve as the country’s forerunner of national industrialization but had no
true intent and no real basis for such, and that the ruling state and system
all the more had no real interest in national industrialization, I decided to
no longer work for the exploiters, and instead to give my everything, including
my full-time to what would really serve for the upliftment of the lives and
progress of the people.
I resigned and immediately turned to full- time, intensive research and
social investigation by reading written works and interviewing people to rethink
and determine where I should devote the whole of myself for the rest of my
life.
I immediately concentrated on studying radical revolutionary writings on
society in the
Philippines
and the world, including proposed solutions to the socio-economic-cultural-political
problems of the people.
Among the writings I concentrated on and found most accurate and incisive in
reflecting reality in the depiction of the country and people, and most
insightful and profound in proposing solutions to the deep and long-standing
problems of the people and society were Ka Joema’s Struggle for National
Democracy and (under the pseudonym of “Amado Guerrero”) Philippine Society and
Revolution, as well as the Communist Manifesto and various classical works of
Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao Zedong, plus John Eaton’s Political Economy.
I particularly closely concentrated on Ka Joema’s works as I found them most
immediately useful for the present situation and struggle of the Filipino
people, while at the same time I also devoted much time on the voluminous
classical writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Mao and others who made profound
analyses of the situation in their respective countries and in the world.
After attending various fora, study circles and going around, interviewing
people who had something to do with various social movements in the country
(including, activists and rallyists), I was fully convinced that the movement
for national democracy is presently the most apt, given the present
semicolonial and semifeudal conditions of Philippine society and the present
stage of the socio-economic-cultural-political revolution that needs to be
completed in the country —as I learned from Ka Joema’s writings. I thus decided
to give my time and the full of my life to the present national democratic
revolutionary struggle and its revolutionary socialist perspective.
It did not take long before I personally met Ka Joema. There were later
times when Ka Joema and I would meet to talk about particular tasks I was then
participating in.
I was, however, arrested (for the first time) in early 1974 and released
after three years — after the Amnesty International exposed the crimes of
torture committed by the Marcos martial law regime against us political
prisoners, and we also wrote about and filed legal complaints about those
crimes of torture.
By then, Ka Joema had been arrested (in November 1977) in La Union. He
underwent brutalities and, throughout his martial law detention, was kept in an
isolation cell in
Fort
Bonifacio and intensively
subjected to cruel restrictions. He had to climb the walls of his isolation
cell just to be able to talk with other political detainees also kept in
neighboring isolation cells to the left and to the right of his own.
More importantly, even under very restrictive conditions of detention, Ka
Joema — with the help and partnership of his wife, Ka Juliet, as his note-taker
and co-author, continued to put out sharp ideological and political
revolutionary writings, that have continued to be of great value and help to
the national democratic revolutionary movement and the proletarian
revolutionary party in its lead. Most incisive were his criticisms of some
confused socio-economic analyses (including the exaggerated estimate of the
level of urbanization and industrial development already reached in the
country, as against the continuing and even worsening pre-industrial and
semifeudal socio-economic state of the country) and, more importantly, his
criticisms of some revisionist errors in revolutionary tactics prevailing then,
including the premature “Strategic Counter-Offensive” and “Regularization of
the New People’s Army”, given that the people’s war was then still at the early
sub-stage of the strategic defensive. After his release from prison and initial
peace talks were held between the NDFP and the Cory Aquino government, he
criticized the NDFP’s handling then of the peace talks and wrote about how it
should instead be handled. What he wrote about has been how it has been handled
ever since he took over as the NDFP peace panel’s Chief Political Consultant.
The determined pursuit of the rectification campaign throughout the national
democratic movement, actual realities and later developments and progress have
been proving the correctness of the criticisms initiated by Ka Joema.
Soon after we were released from martial law imprisonment, together with
some other leading ex-political prisoners, we held occasional meetings at Ka
Joema’s residence in an apartment in La Loma,
Quezon City.
In our several meetings there, one of those we agreed upon and worked on was
the formation of the Partido ng Bayan (PnB), a precursor of the Makabayan
Coalition and its progressive party-list organizations.
Ka Joema was the Chairperson of the PnB Preparatory Committee, but had
earlier been committed to and had to leave for a long series of engagements
abroad. Rolando “Ka Lando” Olalia,Chairperson of the Kilusang Mayo Uno, was
then elected and took over to become the Founding Chairperson. I was then the
Secretary-General.
PnB was fast organized nationwide and won some congressional and local seats
in the ensuing elections. But all along and afterwards, it terribly suffered
extra-judicial killings and other grave human rights violations, including the
killing of Ka Lando and the killing and attempted killing of a big number of
other PnB leaders, personnel and supporters.
The lives and security of other PnB leaders, personnel and supporters
continued to be endangered, and even shifting mobile offices and quarters could
no longer be safely maintained.
I had little choice but to go underground, often living with and kept secure
by the worker and peasant masses.
In Ka Joema’s case, he was obliged to stay in exile abroad. But the
reactionary state and successive reactionary regimes would not let him stay in
peace even outside the country. His life and security remained constantly under
threat.
The reactionary state has also delved into coming out with numerous
concoctions of several criminal charges against Ka Joema. The Arroyo regime’s
Inter-Agency Legal Action Group was specifically busy day-in and day-out
manufacturing trumped-up criminal charges against Ka Joema and other leaders of
the national democratic movement.
With the connivance between
U.S.
imperialism and successive kowtowing regimes in his home country, Ka Joema has
been placed and continues to be maintained in the list of “terrorists” and thus
made vulnerable to arrests and harassments.
In late August 2007, the
U.S.
and its puppet Arroyo regime went to the extent of conniving to make the Dutch
police arrest and place him in solitary confinement. Ka Joema’s and the NDFP
leadership’s and peace panel’s papers, computer disks and files were
confiscated. As the Dutch court found no sufficient basis for his imprisonment,
he was released after 16 days, and the files were also returned but important
files were damaged.
Even in exile and subjected to threats and harassments, however, Ka Joema
remains undeterred from continuing with his work and contributions to the
people’s struggles and revolutionary movement in his home country and in the world.
His comprehensive grasp of and insights into local and world situation and
sharpness in thusly defining revolutionary strategy and tactics have not at all
dulled but have even become more advanced and developed with age, the
protracted struggle and rich summed-up experiences and revolutionary practice.
Aside from his continuing ideological and political leadership in the
revolutionary movement in the homefront and his being chief political
consultant of the NDFP and its peace panel, Ka Joema presently chairs the
International League of People’s Struggles, an international organization with
the objective of promoting peoples struggles and progressive organizations
throughout the world.
He has also been very keen on the need to help strengthen fraternal
relations among revolutionary parties and to help develop the international
communist movement.
All these continuing efforts and work of Ka Joema are evident that prison
and exile—itself an extension of prison—are still not enough to shackle
revolutionaries like Ka Joema.
His efforts,keenness, work and achievements continue to guide and inspire
us, political prisoners. with revolutionary and pro-people aspirations, and a
great many more in the revolutionary movement outside of prison.
http://www.philippinerevolution.net/statements/20140208_militant-and-hearty-greetings-to-ka-joema-on-his-75th-birthday-and-55-years-of-service
