Netizens react to the death of self-exiled CPP founder Joma Sison at 83
Jose Maria Sison, founding member of the Communist Party of the Philippines, has died after a two-week confinement in a hospital in the Netherlands, his party said on Saturday, December 17. He was 83.
Sison, who sparked one of the longest Maoist insurgencies in the world, had lived in exile in the Netherlands since the failure of peace negotiations in 1987 when the rebellion, which claimed tens of thousands of lives, was at its height.
“The Filipino proletariat and toiling people grieve the death of their teacher and guiding light,” the party said in a statement on their website.
Mr. Sison had sought to overthrow the government of the Philippines to establish a Maoist-style communist regime that would end “American imperialism” in the former American colony.
The armed struggle, at work since 1969, developed from the world communist movement and was able to find fertile ground in the Philippines in the glaring inequalities between rich and poor.
The rebellion was also reinforced under the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos (1972-1986) when the legislative power was locked, the press muzzled and thousands of opponents tortured or killed.
At its zenith in the 1980s, the organization numbered around 26,000 fighters, a number the army says is now close to a few thousand.
Netizens remain divided over their opinions of the communist leader, with some expressing “glee” that someone they considered an “evil communist terrorist” and a “monster” has finally bit the dust, while others are mourning the loss of the iconic revolutionary who was their “inspiration” in their struggle for a people’s revolution.
Juan Ponce Enrile, Sr., former Defense Secretary and Senator, once more became the subject of memes for outliving yet again another political figure from a bygone era. Enrile has so far outlived many of his contemporaries and younger political peers.
