Palace: Joma out of touch with comrades fighting in PH

Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison is out of touch with his people on the ground who have now become “plain criminals and extortionists,” Malacañang said on Saturday as it echoed the President in questioning his failure to come home to the country.

President Rodrigo Duterte, in his continuing word war with Sison as peace talks between the government and communist insurgents collapsed, had taunted his former professor and challenged him to return to the Philippines to fight him.

The President had also railed against the New People’s Army’s collection of revolutionary taxes, and said this was just ex-tortion.

Sison said he would return to the country if deemed necessary by the revolutionary movement to fight the “Duterte puppet regime of US imperialism,” and would not be dictated upon by Mr. Duterte.

He also said he did not have to prove that he had the will and courage to wage an armed struggle against oppression.

“Mr. Sison’s remarks only highlight his apparent disconnect with their men and women on the ground who seem to have deteriorated from ideologues to plain criminals and extortionists,” said  presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella.

According to Abella, it was unfortunate that Si-son had to be coaxed to come back to the Philippines, while his comrades suffer in the mountains and even have to be rescued by soldiers.

“Mr. Sison apparently took to the soft life in Europe leaving his comrades to fend for themselves. No wonder they are only too eager now to demand their unearned portions,” he added.

Sison and his wife Juliet went into exile in the Netherlands in 1986 after they were released following the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos in the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution.

Even as he exchanges barbs with Mr. Duterte, Sison said the President should allow his negotiat-ing panel to continue peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the CPP’s political arm.