Panelo prods Joma to go home: ‘Unchain’ self from exile, ‘face the music’

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo and CPP founding chair Joma Sison INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

MANILA, Philippines — Malacañang has called on Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Joma Sison to “unchain himself from his exile and face the music” as a Manila court ordered arrest, along with 37 others, over the “Inopacan Massacre.”

The Palace official assured Sison that he is welcome to come back to the Philippines “to avail of his constitutional right to confront his accusers and prepare for his defense.”

“Mr. Sison should unchain himself from his exile and face the music,” Palace spokesman Salvador Panelo said in a statement Friday.

“His illusive if not illusory dream of wresting political from the present dispensation should give way to a principled and courageous stand to face trial,” he added.

Sison has been in self-exile in the Netherlands for some three decades now.

Sison and his co-accused were tagged in the so-called “Inopacan massacre,” a 1980s purge of CPP members accused of various offenses in the province of Leyte, according to an arrest warrant issued by Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina of Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 32.

READ: Manila court orders arrest of CPP’s Joma, 37 others over 80s ‘purge’

“The law is no respecter of any transgressor and prosecution therefore must proceed in accordance thereof. Mr. Sison, et al. will have their day in court,” Panelo said.

“We are one with the families and loved ones of the victims in calling for justice, the warrant of arrest shall be served as directed upon us by the Judiciary,” he added. /kga