Joma Sison denies red-tagging Gabriela, Anakbayan et al
By Noreen Jazul
The founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) Joma Sison has denied red-tagging organizations such as Gabriela, Anakbayan, Bayan Muna, Kilusang Mayo Uno, Alliance of Concerned Teachers, et al.
Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Eduardo Año, in his appearance before the Senate National Defense and Security Committee on Tuesday, said Sison himself red-tagged the activist groups in one of his old speeches.
The CPP founder, however, said the speech Año was pertaining to was “spliced.”
“When I spoke in Belgium in 1988, and the Philippine military was able to get a hold of the video, they spliced the video to make it appear that I said that the legal democratic organizations are fronts in the sense that they are a facade, I never used that kind of language,” Sison told ANC in an interview Wednesday.
Sison said that what he did during the speech was to “differentiate” the legal forces of the national democratic movements from the armed revolutionary movement.
“I can give the full video from the Workers' Party of Belgium. I always differentiate between the legal democratic organizations and the revolutionary forces in the underground and those involved in the people’s war in the countryside,” Sison said.
Sison said that Jeffrey Celis, aka “Ka Eric,” a rebel leader who was also present during yesterday’s Senate hearing on alleged red-tagging activities of the military, is a “fake.”
Sison also accused the military of using money for “fake surrenderers, witnesses, and encounters.”
“They think they can finish off the movement or show signs of success by red-tagging social activists and human rights defenders in the urban areas,” Sison said.