‘Incorrigible rebel’ lambastes ‘bloodthirsty maniac’

As the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) marked its 50th anniversary on Wednesday, its founding chair, Jose Maria Sison, called President Rodrigo Duterte a bloodthirsty “murder maniac” who represented an oligarchy worse than that of dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Presidential spokesperson Salvador Panelo countered Sison’s remarks, saying the CPP founder’s long exile in the Netherlands “has dulled his senses, put him out of touch of reality and in constant state of hallucination.”

“The winds of change will sweep this incorrigible rebel, who is living in comfort and luxury while his comrades are in the hills, as well as those who follow him, to oblivion and will be buried in the dustbin of history,” Panelo said in a statement.

He said Sison’s 50-year rebellion was “a failure that brought only the loss of lives and destruction of property and fear to the very people he is supposed to have fought for.”

In contrast, the President had launched “a revolution of change” in governance while serving and protecting the people and the democratic way of life from criminals, corrupt officials and terrorists, Panelo said.

“In the spirit of Christmas,” he added, “we still wish him well and pray that he be blessed with inner peace and enlightenment.”

In a TV interview, Sison, 79, said the Duterte administration was the “worst manifestation of the oligarchy, much worse than the Marcos phenomenon.”

“If a mediocre student like Duterte, and if someone who is only good for being mayor, and even bad as he was, engaged in extrajudicial killings, now you have a maniac, a modern maniac in power trying to put on a national scale his bloodthirsty kind of character,” said Sison, who was one of Mr. Duterte’s  professors in college.

He said the CPP’s growth may not be visible in urban areas but it exercised “Red political power” in the countryside.