Joma: I am not a Dutch citizen

Jose Maria Sison. FILE PHOTO / INQUIRER

LUCENA CITY – Exiled Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison denied on Tuesday that he is already a Dutch citizen.

“I have never applied for Dutch citizenship and have never been naturalized as a Dutch citizen,” Sison said in a statement from his base in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

He accused Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, the government-owned People’s Television Network, and “Ambag Bayan” Facebook page for spreading the “fake news”.

“This is similar to the previous fake news that I have been recently arrested by Dutch authorities as a consequence of Duterte´s Proclamation 374 against terrorism,” Sison recalled.

Sison challenged legitimate mass media or any respectable person to verify the fact of his status from the Dutch authorities in The Hague or the Dutch embassy in Manila.

“In fact, my actual residence in The Netherlands is in accordance with my being a recognized political refugee since 1992, and also in accordance with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights,” he said.

He added: “I can travel for the purpose of peace negotiations under a laissez passer without having to be a Dutch citizen”.

Sison and his wife Juliet were forced into exile and settled in Utrecht, The Netherlands in 1986 after then President Corazon Aquino canceled Sison’s passport while the CPP founder was on a European lecture tour. The Sison couple has never set foot in the Philippines since then.

In a month-old video clip, Roque told newsmen: “Joma, I understand, has taken Dutch citizenship. He is a foreign national”.

Roque’s short interview was repeated several times during the four-minute video clip and shared on Facebook by “Ambag Bayan”. The video was interspersed with photo clips of Sison in the company of beautiful women, insinuating that the rebel leader was having a good life in the Utrecht.

Sison said: “It is exceedingly impertinent for my detractors in the Duterte regime to include in the film clip my photos with various beautiful persons over a period of two decades”.

He also said that the photos “have been taken during happy public occasions in which I and the other persons (overseas Filipino workers, academics and TV entertainment personalities) are properly dressed and behave in a friendly way towards each other”.

Sison added that the “fake news” aims to deflect attention from the “monstrous crimes” of President Rodrigo Duterte and his administration.              /kga