Who was Joma Sison?

Jean-Marie Valheur

He was a famous Filipino communist rebel, a terrorist and a man of violence. Joma Sisonwas name you really shouldn’t mention down in the provinces, in the remote towns and villages I dwelled — for the wrong ears might hear you speak it and think of you as either a sympathiser or an ally; and being seen as either of those was dangerous.

Born into a wealthy Ilokano family in the northernmost province of the island of Luzon, the Philippines, Jose Maria “Joma” Sison was a man of privilege. His family belonged to the political elites, his great-uncles and ancestors being governors and men of power. Sison, however, was driven to a different purpose — a socialist revolution, an overthrow of the Filipino government and establishing Communism in the archipelago. Influenced by Mao Zedong, Sison took up arms against his own government.

In the 1970s, Sison ran the CPP — Communist Party of the Philippines. He also was involved, and the leader of, its armed wing, the NPA — New People’s Army. Fighting against the regime of Filipino president Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, Sison secured funding from the Chinese directly, with the NPA getting weapons and ammunition in secret, directly from Beijing. The rebel group attacked government troops relentlessly. Sison himself was captured in battle and imprisoned until 1987, when he was freed after a popular movement overthrew Marcos.

Joma Sison, immediately upon being freed, fled abroad as he felt in danger of his life. He went to the Netherlands, asking for political asylum. He was not granted asylum, but his lawyers argued that Sison could not be deported because he might be killed if he would set foot on Filipino soil again. As a result, the aging Communist rebel leader was allowed to stay in the city of Utrecht, the Netherlands, where he made his home. In 2005 he was detained briefly on suspicion of ordering the murders of several NPA leaders from his comfortable life abroad. Due to a lack of direct evidence implicating Sison, he was freed once more. He lived in the Netherlands with his wife, four children and ten grandchildren close to his side. He also had quite an active “cult of personality” going on, and reportedly lived it up rather well, throwing lavish parties for guests, family and friends.

Carefully building his ‘brand’, the elderly terrorist became known as the kindly old face of Filipino communism, a grand man of letters, a poltical activist; a role he relished in, albeit an undeserving one that erased the suffering of so many who died by his hand or at his call. He lived out his days removed from the pain and suffering, removed from the very real human cost of his wicked ideology, not having to face its victims, not having to deal with its casualties as he and his loved ones lived the high life.

Jose Maria Sison died on December 17, 2022 at the age of 83. He died after living a comfortable life in a first world country for decades, while his comrades in the Philippines perish in little mountain communities, in valleys and jungles, living plain and simple lives as they continue to ambush the soldiers of their own nation.