Palace belittles Sison’s threat
Credit to Author: DEMPSEY REYES| Date: Thu, 03 Jan 2019 16:37:50 +0000
Malacañang on Thursday belittled the communist movement’s capability to unseat President Rodrigo Duterte, even with Jose Maria “Joma” Sison’s threat that ousting the Chief Executive would be their top priority in 2019.
Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo reiterated that Sison, who has been in self-exile in the Netherlands since 1987, has no capability of toppling the Duterte government.
“He has been saying that and as I said much earlier and even recently, his is a failed rebellion. It’s about time that he realizes the fact that 50 years of rebellion has not borne any fruits, insofar as the intention of the rebellion he has launched is concerned,” Panelo told reporters.
The Palace official said Sison was “an illusionist, a visionary that has become illusory.”
“Palagay ko panahon na magkaroon siya ng enlightenment. But I don’t blame him, given the fact that he’s many thousand miles away. Wala talaga siya sa realidad eh. Hindi niya nakikita ang nangyayari dito sa Pilipinas (It is time for him to find enlightenment. He is far from reality. He does not see what is happening because he is many miles away),” Panelo said.
“Wala naman talagang maselan na threat ‘yung kay Sison mismo. Pero ‘yung nasa ground na silang gumagawa ng pagsalakay, ‘yun ang mga banta but ready naman ang ating mga armed forces (There is no real threat from Sison. But those forces on the ground, they are the ones who attack. They are the threat but the Armed Forces is ready),” he added.
On Wednesday, Sison said that while the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) remains open to peace negotiations with the government, the panel’s efforts are now geared towards Duterte’s removal.
“The NDFP is authorized to be open to peace negotiations with the current and prospective regime of the reactionary government, but its principal work now is to work for the ouster of the Duterte regime,” Sison said in a statement.
“We expect that the Filipino people and their revolutionary forces will win ever greater victories in the next year and thereafter,” he added.
Sison said the NDFP must “further strengthen” its organization as the “most consolidated realization” of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and be able to cooperate with all its possible allies “to isolate and oust the Duterte regime from power.”
He also said the New People’s Army (NPA), the CPP’s armed wing which the military has dismissed as a spent force, will increase attacks on government troops in the countryside.
Hallucination
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) said Sison’s threat to oust Duterte was a hallucination.
“He must not only be dreaming, he is hallucinating. From here on, any moves by the CPP-NPA-NDF [National Democratic Front] and its allied organizations to oust the President will be attributed to Mr. Sison,” Col. Noel Detoyato, AFP public affairs chief, told reporters.
“This consultant is not advising his clients properly,” he added.
Sen. Panfilo Lacson also on Thursday said the CPP’s “priority” to overthrow a sitting president in 2019 justifies the move to tag its armed wing, the NPA as a terrorist group.
The senator downplayed Sison’s oust-Duterte threat.
“They have not succeeded for the past five decades. So, I don’t see how they can,” Lacson said in a text message. “Right now, they are reduced to a band of extortionists, arsonists and robbers, even a terrorist group.”
Lacson urged the executive branch, particularly the Department of Justice (DoJ), to follow up with the judiciary a case that they filed calling for the proscription of the NPA as a terrorist group under Section 2 of the Human Security Act (HSA) of 2007.
He noted that in February 2018, the DoJ asked a Manila court to legally declare the CPP-NPA as a terrorist group, citing the HSA.
“Sison and the CPP/NPA have been attempting to overthrow the government, past and present, and take over the government for the past 50 years, by all means possible, mostly violent through armed struggle, even through peace talks aimed at having a coalition government but still aimed at a takeover, violent or otherwise,” Lacson said.
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