At what age Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the Philippine Communist Party, died?
Know how he was the voice of the working class and the guiding light of millions.
Jose Maria Sison, the founder of the Philippine Communist Party, died at the age of 83; his party proclaimed his death on Saturday.
Jose Maria Sison, the Philippines’ communist leader, died at night on Friday following a two-week observation in a health center in the Netherlands.
Sison formed the Philippine Communist Party, whose militant group, the New People’s Army (NPA), has waged among the longest – reigning insurrection. Over 40,000 people have been killed in the discord between the NPA and the Philippine government.
“The Filipino working class and laboring people are mourning over the passing of their speaker and leader who has been their voice for a long time,” the party said on its website.
The self-poised communist leader has been living in Europe since the late 1980s, following his freedom from prison after the downfall of Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator whose son was elected as the president in an electoral cycle of May this year.
Sison was placed on a terrorist watch list in the United States in 2002, restricting him from traveling.
According to the party, Sison sadly passed away around 8:40 pm on Friday (1240 GMT) after being confined in a health center in Utrecht. However, it did not clarify why Sison was imprisoned.
“Even though we lament, we pledge to give all of our power and determination to bring the revolution forward steered by the memories and doctrines of the people’s cherished Ka Joma,” the party stated. “
Early life and education of Jose Maria Sison
Sison had born on February 8, 1939, in Cabugao, Ilocos Sur, to a prominent landowning family descended from Spanish-Mexican-Malay mestizos and Fujian, China, and with ties to other notable clans, including the Geraldino, Crisólogos, Vergara’s, Sollers, Azcueta, Serranos, and Singson’s.
Don Leandro Serrano, his great-grandfather, was the largest landowner in northern Luzon at the end of the nineteenth century. Don Gorgonio Soller Sison was Cabugao’s last governor under Spanish colonial rule, the municipal president under the Philippine revolutionary government, and the city’s first mayor under US colonial rule.
Don Marcelino Crisólogo, his great-uncle, served as the first governor of Ilocos Sur. Teófilo Sison, his uncle, was the governor of Pangasinan and the Commonwealth government’s first Defense Secretary. He was convicted of collaborating with Japanese occupation forces in 1946 but was granted amnesty in 1947.
He realized the Huk rebellion in Central Luzon as a child in Ilocos from Ilocano farm workers and his mother, who came from a landlord family in Mexico, Pampanga. In his initial high school years in Manila, he discussed Hukbalahap activities with his barber. In contrast to his elder siblings, he went to a public school before enrolling at Ateneo de Manila University & later at Colegio de San Juan de Letran.
Sison was also renowned as Joma, and “Ka” indicates comrade.
Rodrigo Duterte, President Marcos’ predecessor, had prioritized concluding the disagreement when he came into office in 2016. Still, he relinquished peace efforts after being enraged by repetitive rebel intrusions during the talks.
The NPA once had 25,000 armed insurgents, but now it only has about 2,000, according to the military.
Since 1886, consecutive Philippine presidencies have carried out peace negotiations with communists thru the PDF, their political arm based in the Netherlands.
As the rebellion waned, party leaders sought to form a government coalition with erstwhile President Rodrigo Duterte.
Peace negotiations were held in anticipation of putting an end to the insurrection. Still, Duterte snipped them off in 2017, proclaiming the party a terrorist organization & castigating them for killing soldiers and officers while talks were ongoing.
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