Filtered By: Topstories
News

NDF: Significant dev't in talks, national artist award may prompt Joma Sison's 2017 homecoming


Exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria Sison may return to the Philippines this year, if there is a "highly significant development" in the peace talks or if he is declared by President Rodrigo Duterte as National Artist for Literature.

"National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) chief political consultant Jose Maria Sison said he is open to going home to the Philippines, when there is a highly significant development in the GRP-NDFP peace negotiations, such as the amnesty and release of all political prisoners listed by the NDFP and the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms by the GRP and NDFP negotiating panels in Oslo," the NDFP said in a statement on Friday.

The NDFP added that another reason for Sison's possible homecoming is the result of his possible nomination as National Artist for Literature in the poetry and essay category, which is due this year.

The President chooses national artists from a shortlist provided by the Cultural Center of the Philippines and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

"He had just learned that creative writers, performing artists and mass leaders, including a group from the Concerned Artists of the Philippines are nominating him for the National Artist Award. He welcomed the nomination, saying this could also be a 'compelling reason' for him to come home. But he modestly said that at this moment, he could not presume to win the award," the NDFP added in its statement.

Sison won the Southeast Asia WRITE Award for poetry and the essay in 1986 and has published several literary pieces since 1959.

A day before the closing of the fourth round of talks in The Netherlands, the peace panels of the NDFP and the government of the Philippines announced that an agreement on an interim joint ceasefire had been reached.

The NDF, in a statement, said the interim joint ceasefire shall be signed simultaneous to, or immediately after, the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms (CASER).

Both panels had also agreed to conclude the unfinished distribution of land and do this for free for the landless and poor farmers, farm workers, and fishermen, with just compensation to owners.

Meanwhile, in a statement on Sunday, the office of lead government negotiator Labor Secretary Silvestro Bello III, said the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG) was elated with the recent developments of discussions in the Netherlands.

"We are very happy with the outcome of the talks," Bello's office quoted Norwegian envoy to the Netherlands Martin Sorby as saying to the peace negotiators from both panels during a meeting at his official residence last Wednesday.

The Norwegian government has been facilitating the talks between the government of the Philippines and the NDFP since 2001.

Not very sick

In its statement, the NDFP said Sison would consider visiting the Philippines once a "real milestone of great substance for the Filipino people be achieved in the peace negotiations."

Sison has been in exile for 30 years. He fled to Europe after the failure of talks in 1987.

The rebel leader, a political science professor, established CPP in December 1968. He is included in the United States' terrorist list.

The NDF, meanwhile, denied that Sison is "very sick" as bared by Duterte in a speech before the Prosecutors League of the Philippines.

The NDF said Sison is "at the stage of gaining strength after three weeks of thoroughgoing diagnostics and medical treatment and one more week of recuperation in the hospital."

It said that unlike in the third round of peace talks when he was hospitalized, Sison was able to attend every major event of the fourth round of negotiations in The Netherlands. —with Jon Viktor D. Cabuenas/ALG, GMA News

LOADING CONTENT