With the death of Communist Party of the Philippine (CPP) founding chair Jose Maria ‘Joma” Sison in the Netherlands Friday night, the Department of National Defense (DND) is expecting peace to be more achievable with the remaining insurgents.
“A new era without Jose Maria Sison dawns for the Philippines, and we will all be the better for it. The greatest stumbling block of peace for the Philippines is gone; let us now give peace a chance,” it added in a statement Saturday afternoon.
The DND also called on Sison’s “remaining few believers” to turn their backs to the CPP-New People’s Army-National Democratic (NPA-NPA) and pursue the path to peace.
“We call on the remaining few believers, who have unwittingly turned themselves into the enemy of the people, still blinded by Sison’s duplicitous and failed promises, to turn their backs on the violent and false ideology of the CPP-NPA-NDF,” it pointed out.
The DND also said that “five decades of brutal and bloody aggression against the state and the Filipino people have led to nothing but destruction and strife for thousands of Filipinos.”
It also noted that Sison’s death highlighted the crumbling leadership of the CPP-NPA-NDF.
“His death deprived the Filipino people of the opportunity to bring this fugitive to justice under our country’s laws. Sison was responsible for the deaths of thousands of our countrymen. Innocent civilians, soldiers, police, child and youth combatants died because of his bidding,” the DND stressed.
The CPP earlier announced that Sison, 83, died in the Netherlands at 8:40 p.m. Friday night after a two-week hospital stay in Utrecht.
“The entire CPP gives the highest possible tribute to its founding chairman, great Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thinker, patriot, internationalist and revolutionary leader,” it added.
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