Sison: Revival of anti-subversion law won’t end insurgency

LUCENA CITY –– Top rebel leader Jose Maria “Joma” Sison was convinced that the revival of the anti-subversion law would not end the growth of the people’s war.

“The revival of the anti-subversion law will not eliminate the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the people’s democratic revolution,” Sison, CPP founder, said in a statement from Utrecht, the Netherlands on Wednesday.

He warned that the revival of the law would “only serve to further violate the national and democratic rights of the people and will thus incite the broad masses of people to rise.”

“The revival of the anti-subversion law can give further license to Duterte’s armed minions to violate human rights and can further embolden them to a witch hunt, harass, threaten and kill those that they arbitrarily list as ‘communists’ among the critics of the regime and the people in general,” Sison said.

“Such law can result in bigger mass murders than those perpetrated under Oplan Tokhang and Oplan Kapanatagan,” he added.

According to him, the anti-subversion law “has long been discredited as an unjust and anti-democratic law by which anyone can be subjected to punishment based on guilt by association, without the need to present evidence for the personal culpability of the accused of any crime.”

On Monday, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año proposed to reinstate Republic Act No. 1700, which criminalized mere membership in the CPP and other similar groups.

Año said reviving the anti-subversion law would help state forces defeat the communist insurgency and stop militant organizations from recruiting students.