ANGELES CITY – The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) accused yesterday supporters of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, as well as some anti-communist elements in the military of spreading the canard that its founder Jose Ma. Sison has returned to the country.
“This is to conjure the illusion that (Pres.) Benigno Aquino III has sided with the communists,” said the CPP in a statement yesterday.
The CPP accused former rebel Rep. Pastor Alcover of the Alliance for Nationalism and Democracy and intelligence personnel of the Armed Forces of “working with right-wing zealots such as Norberto Gonzales, Roberto Intengan and other pro-Arroyo reactionaries” of fabricating the story.
It said the purpose was not only to make it appear that Aquino has become pro-communist, but also for them to project themselves to the US government as being “more reliable puppets.”
“Prof. Jose Ma. Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), remains in his residence in Utrecht, the Netherlands,” the CPP stressed.
Earlier reports quoted Alcover as citing reports that Sison returned to the Philippines via the Clark International Airport here last Jan. 20, sporting the name Renato Maglaya.
Saying that the rumor was to give the impression that it was part of the scenario of the Aquino government in signing a peace pact with the NDFP, the CPP said “there is no peace agreement with the Aquino regime and the possibility of forging one remains dim.”
“The Aquino regime has set itself solidly behind the US imperialists and against the Filipino people’s national and democratic interests.
Aquino is emboldened by US military support and has chosen to heed American advice to treat peace negotiations as a simple psywar tool to camouflage the brutality of its ongoing military campaign of suppression dubbed Oplan Bayanihan,” the CPP added.
The CPP also said that “with US support, the Aquino regime has chosen to keep NDFP peace consultants in detention in violation of standing agreements and continue committing gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.”
The statement noted that “the CPP and the NDFP have repeatedly offered to forge an agreement based on the principles of national sovereignty, democracy and social justice,” but that “the Aquino regime has chosen to disregard such proposals and has placed itself squarely against the people and their revolutionary cause of national and social liberation.”
