You can’t finish us off, Sison tells Duterte

President Rodrigo Duterte “is out of his mind and out of touch with reality” if he thinks he can finish off the communist insurgency in the next five years of his six-year term, Jose Ma. Sison, Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder, said on Sunday.

Sison reminded Mr. Duterte that the armed revolution was rooted in the masses’ fight for social justice, which could not be solved overnight, especially with the existing social order.

“He (the President) cannot finish off in five years an armed revolutionary movement deeply rooted among the toiling masses of workers and peasants, who are fighting for national and social liberation against the big compradors and landlords represented now by him,” Sison told the Inquirer in an online chat.

Despite the government’s pronouncements that it has steadily weakened the communist insurgency, the “revolutionary forces” for the past five decades continue to “grow in strength and spread nationwide,” Sison  said.

“The rank-and-file of the revolutionary forces in the Philippines are highly principled and sharp to know the evil scheme of the US-Duterte regime to combine martial rule and ‘Tokhang’ methods of mass murder, and are ready to fight these effectively,” he said.

‘Crazed by power’

Sison accused Mr. Duterte of being “crazed by power and Fentanyl.”

The 72-year-old President has admitted to taking the powerful pain reliever, as prescribed by his doctor, for some of his ailments.

“In the few months or years ahead, the Duterte regime is the one in danger of being overthrown by the people if it does not change its extremely brutal and malicious ways.

“Duterte should start to shake in his boots the moment he sees a broad united front building up against his rule and fascist acts,” Sison said.

Sison said Mr. Duterte “merely pretended to be leftist and socialist,” a position taken by the former’s colleagues in the CPP, its armed wing, the New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

Philippine National Police Director General Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa said on Saturday that the President had given him the order to “wipe out” communist rebels after the government had finished off the Islamic State-inspired Maute-Abu Sayyaf coalition in Marawi City.

In his second State of the Nation Address  last week, Mr. Duterte announced that he was abandoning peace negotiations with the Left and that the  government would focus on the NPA once the Marawi siege was over.

Support for all-out war

Peace and conflict studies expert Dennis Quilala said  support was expected for the all-out war against the communist rebels because the President “has prepared the public for this.”

However, Quilala expressed deep concern for the people who would be displaced by the fighting.

“The people who will be displaced need to prepare as well,” he said.

Quilala, a University of the Philippines professor, said  Mr. Duterte’s plan would “definitely put pressure on the CPP-NPA-NDFP.”

He said the Duterte administration could even be successful if local government units (LGUs) would cooperate with the effort to address the communist insurgency, the longest-running in Asia.

“It’s also difficult [for the national government] if they (LGUs) also pay revolutionary taxes or pay [the NPA] so that they could campaign in their areas,” Quilala said, referring to the “permit to campaign” imposed by the rebels during election season.

He said that “at best, (the insurgency) will be weakened” with such a combined effort between the national and local governments.