Sison: ‘Duterte will fail in his ambition to crush the NPA’

LUCENA CITY – Exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison on Wednesday said President Rodrigo Duterte was “delusional” and “pipe dreaming” by claiming that government would finish off the New People’s Army (NPA) rebels by next year.

“Duterte is delusional by claiming that he shall have destroyed the CPP-NPA and the entire revolutionary movement of the people by the middle of next year,” Sison said in an online interview from Utrecht, Netherlands.

Sison said Duterte was “taking too much of fentanyl. Thus, he is pipe dreaming.”

Duterte earlier admitted that he used to take fentanyl, an opioid pain reliever that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine, for the “perpetual pain” due to a spinal injury he suffered from a past motorcycle accident.

On Tuesday, Duterte made his bold prediction that the communist insurgents “will be over” by next year, as he claimed that more rebels were now surrendering to the government.

“I think, if God will have mercy, the CPP will be over by second quarter of next year,” Duterte told soldiers at Camp Melchor F. Dela Cruz in Gamu, Isabela.

The President said rebel surrenderees, including their leaders, have been going down from their mountain lairs and have turned over their firearms to the government.

But Sison retorted that the President was the one facing ouster next year as “he is now the target of people´s rising hatred.”

“It is more likely that Duterte would be ousted from power than that he could destroy the people´s revolutionary movement by the middle of next year,” Sison said.

“They reject the traitorous, tyrannical, murderous and corrupt character of his regime.”

“He forgets that the campaign of mass murder and mass intimidation and fake surrenders and fake encounters under Oplan Kapayapaan are angering the people and inciting them to intensify their resistance,” he added.

In its official news organ, Ang Bayan, issued early this month, the CPP mocked Duterte’s failure to fulfill his earlier vow to crush the NPA before the end of this year.

“Duterte will fail in his ambition to crush the NPA because he is extremely isolated from the Filipino people. As his war of suppression become increasingly brutal and cruel, he is further inciting the people to take up arms and resist,” the CPP said.  /muf