Youth group says massive protests set after Roque’s remarks vs. Joma Sison

A militant youth group on Tuesday said it will conduct massive protests on February 2 and 23 as a response to presidential spokesperson Harry Roque's "ridiculing" of communist leader Jose Maria Sison's call for youth protests against President Rodrigo Duterte.

It said it will launch "massive mobilizations and walkout protests" on the said dates.

"Duterte has intensified the crisis in our society strong enough to generate an even stronger resistance. Youth and students from across the country, together with the wider masses, will take to the streets in droves to thwart his dictatorial ambition," Anakbayan national secretary-general Einstein Recedes said.

Sison said the youth should launch mass protests, similar to the First Quarter Storm of 1970, against Duterte.

Roque scoffed at Sison's call for the youth to march against Duterte, saying that the communist leader has been "stuck in the past."

"Again, we don’t attach too much importance [to] Joma Sison. I hope he has enough grandchildren to heed this call," presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said at a briefing in the Palace.

The youth group said that instead of Sison, Duterte should be mocked for "idolizing the failed ways of dictator Ferdinand Marcos."

"If there’s anything to be poked fun at here, it is Duterte’s vacuous idolatry of the fascist dictator Marcos. He is wittingly making a fool out of himself for thinking he can crush people’s struggle against his tyrannical rule by imitating the late dictator’s ways because history has already proven otherwise," Recedes said.

Recedes said that the Duterte administration should not belittle and underestimate the "revolutionary strength" of Filipino masses.

"Duterte and his lackeys like Roque might as well take a look back in the past to see how people’s organized resistance similar to the FQS ( First Quarter Storm) movement prevailed and helped topple a dictatorship he is currently trying to install.” he said. —Marlly Rome Bondoc/ALG, GMA News