Palace: Joma Sison’s long exile put him in ‘constant state of hallucination’

Malacañang on Wednesday called Jose Maria Sison an “incorrigible rebel” as the government slammed the communist movement that allegedly brought only misery to the people.

Sison is the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines which is celebrating its 50th anniversary on Wednesday, Dec. 26.

In a statement, presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo said Sison’s “long exile has dulled his senses, put him out of touch of reality and in constant state of hallucination.”

Sison fled to Europe soon after peace talks with the government of then-President Corazon Aquino failed in 1987 and has stayed in The Netherlands since, while the country's longest running insurgency continued to claim thousands of lives amid fighting with government troops.

Panelo then made a comparison between Sison and President Rodrigo Duterte, who, according to the communist leader is the “best recruiter” of the CPP and its armed wing, New People’s Army, due to the chief executive’s alleged abuse of power.

Sison also said in an interview with ANC television on Wednesday that Duterte is a “modern maniac in power trying to put on a national scale his bloodthirsty kind of character.”

Between Sison and Duterte, Panelo said “the choice is obvious.”

The Palace official said Sison is an “intellectual” whose five decades of “rebellion is a failure that brought only the loss of lives and destruction of property and fear to the very people he is supposed to have fought for.”

Duterte, on the other hand, has launched “a revolution of change in almost all aspects of governance” and is performing his constitutional duty to serve and to protect the people from criminals, the corrupt, terrorists and “from the likes of failed ideologies” like Sison, according to Panelo.

“The winds of change will sweep this incorrigible rebel, who is living in comfort and luxury while his comrades are in the hills, as well as those who follow him, to oblivion and will be buried in the dustbin of history,” Panelo said.

He reiterated the government’s call for the rebels to surrender and wished, “in the spirit of Christmas,” that Sison will be “blessed with inner peace and enlightenment.” —KG, GMA News