Red salute to Joma Sison's 55 years of service to the Filipino people's struggle for national and social liberation

Belarmino Dabalos Saguing

Rome, 09/01/2014

Prof. Jose Maria Sison

Prof. Joma Sison’s 55 years dedicated to the struggle of Filipinos for national and social liberation and his 75^th birthday will be celebrated with a cultural event to be hosted by the National Democratic Front of the Philippnes (NDFP) event on Sunday, 9 February, 2014 in Amsterrdam, the Netherlands. Luis G. Jalandoni, the NDFP Chief International Representative and Chairperson of the NDFP Negotiating Panel holding peace talks with the Manila government, will deliver the keynote speech for the event.

Included in the culturalpresentation are poems of Prof. Sison among other cultural numbers to be performed through the auspices of Linangan Art and Culture Network and the Doiruta Consort. A video showing Prof. Sison’s personal and revolutionary background will also be shown.

Professor Jose Maria Sison was a Student leader in the University of the Philippines where he was granted a professorship position later after his graduation, founding Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), Chairperson of the International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS) and Chief PoliticalConsultant of the NDFP in peace negotiations with the government of the Republic of the Philippines.

He fought against the Marcos fascist dictatorship. He was captured in 1977 and continued to oppose the dictatorship even while he was in detention. While in prison, he was tortured and kept in solitary confinement in most of his time of incarceration. After the fall of the Marcos regime in 1986, he was released from prison and rejoined the teaching staff in UP and delivered a series of lectures on the main thesis that, despite the fall of Marcos, the Philippines remained semicolonial and semifeudal, and still needed a new democratic revolution.

He went abroad in 31 August 1986 for a global lecture tour. The military pressured President Cory Aquino in 1988 to cancel his documents in attempt to to force his return to the Philippines. He requested political asylum in the Netherlands. Under persistent pressure from Manila and Washington, the dutch government, despite his established political refugee status, he was subjected to terrorist blacklisting and was detained in the summer of 2007 under false murder charges. He later won his legal cases and was freed.

In all his years abroad, Prof. Sison has consistently followed events and developments in his country and worldwide. And he has acted on various issues by attending conferences, conducting research, and delivering lectures and speeches to university audiences, labor organizations, conferences of parties, and others. His cultural activities include participation in major poetry festivals. He has written several volumes of books.