Joma Sison again denies legal groups as red fronts, alleges military spliced ​​video

MANILA – Self-exiled communist leader José María Sison reiterated Wednesday a refusal to identify progressive groups as a communist front amid accusations that he was the culprit of the red label.

Speaking to the ANC, one of the leaders of the long-running Philippine communist insurgency accused the army of splicing a video from 1988 to make it appear that groups like Kilusang Mayo Uno, Gabriela, and the Alliance of Concerned Teachers, among others, were allied with his why.

“Well, I spoke in Belgium, in Brussels, in 1988 and the Philippine army was able to get hold of the video. They spliced ​​the video to make it look like I said that legal democratic organizations are fronts, in the sense that they are fronts. I never used that guy. of language, “he said.

“In fact, I distinguished the legal forces of the national democratic movement from the armed revolutionary movement. So it’s stupid of the military to splice this together. I used to call them military jerks, but [now] call them idiots. “

Various military and police officers had claimed that it was Sison himself who lashed out at legal democratic organizations.

Sison, who has exiled himself to the Netherlands for more than 30 years, also dismissed as “totally false” claims of receiving cuts of up to 40 percent from companies extorted by his armed wing, the New People’s Army ( NPA).

“I depend on the help of family and friends … I don’t have to depend on funds that belonged to the revolutionary movement,” he said.

He was reacting to an accusation made by Jeffrey “Ka Eric” Celiz, whom the military presented to testify against Communist rebels during Tuesday’s Senate hearing on the alleged rampant practice by state forces of red tagging.

Celiz, who is included in President Rodrigo Duterte’s narcolist, claims to be a former member of the armed communist movement.

On allegations that some NPA officers raped their female members, Sison criticized the military for allegedly making up stories.

He insists that the communist party is committed to “following international human rights law and international humanitarian law in the humanitarian conduct of war.”

“So you have a very responsible move, that’s why it lasted so long,” Sison added.

Attempts to negotiate peace with the communist movement in the early Duterte administration had failed after alleged rebel attacks on state forces while negotiations were underway. Since then the offensives against the Communists have resumed.