Jose Maria Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and his wife said they were “not bothered” being designated as terrorists by the government.
“To start with, the list of names in the designation appears to be arbitrary, dubious and even contradictory or inconsistent with the various public and purportedly personal statements even of its own NTF-ELCAC (National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict) evil minions,” said Sison, who is in self-exile in The Netherlands.
“Moreover, it includes mostly publicly known political consultants of the NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines) negotiating panel in the peace negotiations with the Manila government who are all entitled to the protection of the GRP-NDFP Joint Agreement of Safety and Immunity Guarantees(JASIG) and other binding bilateral agreements.”
Aside from Jose Maria Sison, also included designated as terrorists are his wife Julieta, Vicente Ladlad, Jorge Madlos, Adelberto Silva, Rey Casambre, Rafael Baylosis, and Wilma and Benito Tiamzon. They are all members of the CPP’s Central Committee.
The designation of the alleged 19 terrorists, listed in the council’s Resolution Number 17 (2021) dated April 21, 2021, authorizes the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to freeze their assets.
Jose Maria Sison, wife ‘not bothered’ being listed as terrorists
Sison lambasted ATC vice-chairperson and National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., who had told the Supreme Court about the organizations that are allegedly linked to CPP.
“I can only say that if there is such a thing as red-tagging, the master red-tagger is Jose Maria Sison. On our part, we are simply informing the public. This is, of course, what we would call now as ‘truth tagging,’” Esperon said during the oral arguments on the petitions against the anti-terror law yesterday.
“He has sunk to a lower level of idiocy by describing as red-tagging my simple enumeration of the 18 self-acknowledged component underground organizations of the NDFP (National Democratic Front of the Philippines), which are entirely different and distinct from the perfectly legal Bayan and its federated legal member-organizations,” Sison said in reply.
Jose Marie Sison said he was “glad” that Esperon admitted the “malice of what he and his cohorts always do: red-tagging, to prepare the arrest and murder of social activists, trade unionists, peasant leaders, religious leaders, lawyers and other human rights defenders.”
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