CPP founder says arrest order is politically-motivated

MANILA, Philippines  – Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chairman Jose Maria “Joma” Sison on Wednesday said that the warrant of arrest issued by a Manila court for the 1985 Inopacan massacre is “politically-motivated.”

Sison likewise stressed that he enjoys absolute protection from laws and the Geneva Convention and European Convention on Human Rights and cannot be extradited to the Philippines or any other country.

“This is not the first time that authorities in the Philippines have tried to make a charge against me… Let me comment directly on this current false charge. It is politically motivated and fabricated,” Sison said in an interview via Skype on ABS-CBN News Channel.

He said that he was under maximum security detention in 1985 and as a prisoner had no authority over the CPP and its armed wing, the  New People’s Army (NPA). “We start with that fact,” he said.

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

Sison also believes that his looming arrest based on a warrant issued by the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 32 and the attempt of the Philippine National Police (PNP) to get a red notice from the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) — or a request to locate and provisionally arrest a person facing extradition, surrender, or a similar legal action — will not prosper.

“As I have pointed out, I am well protected by the Geneva Convention and by the European Convention on Human Rights. That means to say that no international authority can override the fact that I am in the Netherlands and I am within the jurisdiction of the Netherlands,” he explained.

“I think my lawyers can easily debunk the false charge, so there is no way I can be extradited. There is no extradition treaty between the Netherlands and the Philippines and you have to take into account the two conventions,” he added.

He said that under the European Convention, he cannot be put at risk of being “tortured or subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment” and that being deported to the Philippines to face the charges means he will face the same military that tortured him during the reign of then-president Ferdinand E. Marcos.

Asked if he will instead choose to go back to the country, he said: “I know It’s foolish me to enter the trap of Duterte. I don’t think I will get a fair trial in the Philippines. I will be subjected to torture, physical and psychological.”

Aside from Sison, the Manila court also ordered the arrest of 37 others for 15 counts of murder over the so-called CPP purge in Inopacan, Leyte, where authorities found a mass grave with the skeletal remains of 15 people. /gsg