It finally happened just before the CPP-NPA-NDF celebrated another anniversary of their revolt this month. Joma Sison died in a hospital in Utrecht after what was probably a lingering illness.
Sison and the leadership of the communists didn't have a succession plan in place. Fidel Agcaoili went ahead of Sison. Luis Jalandoni is almost as old as Joma and probably won't be effective as a leader should he be the successor.
The spouses Benito and Wilma Tiamzon were reported to have been killed in an encounter with the AFP in Samar. The couple would've been the logical successor since they were both ideologues and have led the NPA in the field.
Satur Ocampo is also too old to be the successor to Sison. He is also more of an intellectual driving force with his writing than someone who can strategize for the movement.
The operative question is could the movement die with Sison?
Probably not. But given how the AFP has been scoring gains against the NPA in their last remaining strongholds the future looks bleak.
More than likely, the leftist-militants will shift to the mainstream as the battlefield since the leaders of their mainstream front organizations aren't stupid enough to suffer living in the mountains and doing battle with the AFP in an exercise of futility.
The Filipino communist is after all, a bohemian communist, with a taste for the finer things in life. They are more French than Russian, which means they're not too serious with a revolution.
Just look at the likes of Teddy Casiño, Nato Reyes, Inday Varona, Neri Colmenares and their ilk. They will just coalesce with the liberals as what Varona has done by moving over to cRappler from ABS-CBN.
The absence of succession planning in the movement is the fault of Sison himself. Sison conducted a purge in the late 80s to the early 90s which led to a split in the ranks of the CPP-NPA-NDF. This led to the deaths of Popoy Lagman and other rising leaders who could've succeeded Joma when the time came. Unfortunately, Sison was also dictatorial and wasn't amenable to giving way to the younger generation. He surrounded himself with his loyal cirlce of sycophants led by Agcaoili as his number two in Utrecht and Jalandoni and Ocampo in the Philippines.
The CPP-NPA-NDF was able to penetrate the government bureaucracy during the Ramos administration after they obtained appointments as part of the peace and reconciliation efforts of Ramos who was cultivating his statesman image. Witness how the Reds were full of praise for Tabako when he died earlier this year.
The party-list law was also passed during the Ramos administration. This allowed the Reds to become active in the mainstream through the House of Representatives. Ironically, the so-called representatives of the people have never won a direct election running under their organizations.
Even if they were carried as guest candidates in the slates of the traditional political parties, not one has managed to win a seat. This is true for all of the election cycles since 1998 when they sided with Erap, all the way to 2022 when they supported Leni Robredo, with another wing running their own presidential candidate.
The truth is the Reds are no different from the other power blocs in the country. They exploit the poor and play footsies with the oligarchs. Witness how they took up the cudgels for ABS-CBN after its franchise wasn't renewed.
Their propagandists also find employment in the broadsheets and networks of other oligarchs such as the MVP Group with TV5, One News and the Philippine Star and Press One.
Just look at how easy they switch allegiances for their convenience. Dumping Erap for GMA. Then dumping GMA for Noynoy. Supporting Grace Poe in 2016 even if she wasn't duly qualified to run given the problem with her citizenship.
They struck an alliance with Duterte only to demand power-sharing because they couldn't win in a direct election and then turned against Duterte when it was convenient for them again by going back to the Yellowidiots.
The truth is the Reds don't give a shit about the people. They're in it for the power and the money that comes along with that power. Theirs is a warped ideology because communism has long been disproven as a means for the equitable distribution of wealth.
Even hardcore ideologues who were sent to study in China at the peak of Mao's support for Sison have acknowledged that it's not the way to go. The late Chito Sta. Romana and Jaime Florcruz bear witness to this.
If Sison and Ninoy Aquino succeeded in toppling Marcos there surely would've been a power struggle between the two of them as well. It would be beyond Aquino to be a traitor to his class as F. Sionil Jose often pointed out in his columns.
For the most part, if Marcos was truly a ruthless dictator and tyrant, why didn't he execute Aquino, Sison and their ilk who were all in detention? He would be doing the country a favor in the same manner that Lee Kuan Yew dealt with the communists he used to gain power in Singapore then promptly dispatching them in order to ensure the stability of the new city state under his helm.
The leftist-militants and liberals are both part of the power structure in the country and continue to be a part of what's wrong and why we cannot be as progressive as our regional neighbors.
I don't see the death of Sison radically altering the status of the leftist-militants in our society for as long as the other power blocs have a use for them. This is how corrupt our system is.
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