By Ronron
March 2, 2007
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) on Friday hit the leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) who is on exile in The Netherlands for living a very comfortable life while his supporters remain “rotten” in the mountains of the Philippines.
In a press conference at Camp Aguinaldo yesterday, AFP Public Information Officer Lt. Col. Bartolome Bacarro bared pictures of Jose Maria Sison, founding chairman of the CPP and consultant for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), partying together famous Filipino entertainers Ara Mina and Janno Gibbs.
The photographs were displayed on Sison’s website (www.josemariasison.com), which posts primarily his literary works. The photos, according to the website (http://www.josemariasison.org/inps/Xmas06wNethFilcommunity.htm), were taken during their 2006 Christmas celebration on December 9 at The Sands Hotel in Amsterdam.
Another picture taken supposedly from the same event also include Luis Jalandoni, chief of the NDF negotiating panel.
“The pictures send the message the Joma Sison is enjoying life while the people up there are rotting like hell,” Bacarro said, referring to ordinary New People’s Army (NPA) rebels.
Bacarro said he was shocked to see the photos and immediately felt pity for the ordinary insurgents in the Philippines “who are in the mountains, always on the run, get soaked in the rain, and with no food to eat” as they continue to fight the government upon the orders of Sison and other communist leaders.
“How could he say he is on equal footing with their people at the lower level? You could just look at the disparity,” Bacarro said as he hit the principle of socialism being advocated by the CPP-NPA-NDF.
What is worse, Bacarro said, is Sison was not sensitive enough to think about the ordinary rebels when he “boasted” of his pictures with the famous Filipino entertainers by posting it on the internet.
“All of us have social lives… But if I were him, I’d be sensitive to what my people would feel if I put my pictures in this medium,” Bacarro said.
Asked if Mina and Gibbs have liabilities under the law for partying with a person tagged as an “international terrorist” by the US and European Union governments, Bacarro said, “No, I don’t think so.”
The military spokesman said the same issue should not be compared with the AFP, whose top brass also holds social activities, for two reasons.
While they are not in the field, the top military officers are one with the foot soldiers in their fight against enemies of the State and have their own role in said fight. Secondly, the top officers of the AFP went through the stage already of being in the frontlines, Bacarro explained.
The AFP consistently attacks the communist movement, especially recently, because it is getting the blame for the series of extrajudicial killings. The military has denied the allegation, and blamed the incidents instead to the alleged purging activities of the movement./DMS
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