Jose Maria Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (File photo from the Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose Maria “Joma” Sison claimed on Sunday that President Rodrigo Duterte intended to declare martial law nationwide ahead of next year’s polls to secure the victory of his political allies.
In a statement on Facebook, Sison maintained: “Duterte himself and his innermost cabal are hell-bent on ensuring their stay in power through a presidential proclamation of martial law nationwide before the May 2019 midterm elections.”
Sison claimed that the martial law proclamation might be made in January 2019 “in order to ensure that they control and determine the results of the elections.”
Worried of defeat
The CPP founder said that the President would declare martial law because “he is worried to death that his candidates for the lower house and the Senate would be defeated by the opposition candidates and that there would be enough of the opposition in Congress to impeach him and try him for high crimes.”
He pointed out that the President would use the alleged plots for his ouster to justify the declaration of martial law nationwide.