Duterte claims Sison may be suffering from dementia
President Duterte has raised the possibility that self-exiled communist rebel leader Jose Maria Sison could be suffering from dementia.
Speaking at a government assembly on efforts to stamp out the local armed conflict, the President questioned the health condition of Sison after the latter supposedly became incoherent.
"I cannot fathom the brain of Sison. However you prick it, wala na eh (It's gone). He has, I don’t know if dementia or something," Duterte said during the gathering held in Tacloban City, Leyte Thursday, March 18.
"He keeps on transferring from one topic to another that finally I thought that peace through negotiation sa kanila...hindi puwede. So nag-give up na ako (peace through negotiation... but it did not happen. So I gave up)," he said.
In 2018, the President claimed that Sison was "sick with cancer" and had been in and out of the hospital. Sison, founding chair of the Communist Party of the Philippines, had denied Duterte's allegations.
When he tried to jumpstart the peace talks with the rebel group, Duterte said he tried to show sincerity by releasing the "big leaders" of the local communist party, including the Tiamson couple.
"I tried everything. Iyong mga lider ninyo pinalaya ko (I released your leaders) as a show of good faith," he said.
"When we started to talk peace, I released big leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines to show good faith. Now they are wanted. I do not know where the Tiamson spouses are," he added.
Duterte recalled that when he met with the communist leaders to talk about peace, "everything was going all right until the time when Sison and I went down to brass tacks." "Hindi ko maintindihan (I could not understand)," he said.
Duterte insisted that the communist ideology was "dead," adding the rebellion achieved nothing. The rebel organization merely became a group of bandits, committing atrocities such as extortion and oppressing the poor, he said.
"It is a discredited theory," Duterte said.
"Ngayon, 53 years after, wala akong nakitang na-achieve ng komunista. Wala akong nakitang progress sa kalihukan (movement) rather it has become a group of bandits (Now 53 years after, I've not seen the communist achieve something. I've not seen progress in the rather it has become a group of bandits)," he said.
Duterte also slammed anew rebel "taxation," adding the leadership was earning "billions" while the rebels were getting hungry and dying for nothing.
He said the first victims of the communist movement was the poor Filipinos whom they were supposed to protect.
"Ang hindi kasi ninyo alam lahat sa Pilipinas mga mall hingi ng mga liderato, tinatawagan. And they are earning billions. Tapos nandito itong mga kadre gutom, walang nangyayari sa buhay (You don't know that everything in the Philippines, the leadership was calling on the malls asking for money. And they are earning billions while the cadres here are hungry. Nothing was happening to their lives),' he said.
"You, the communist, has not achieved anything at all. At ang pinagpahirapan nila, the persons that they are trying to protect kuno, they are the oppressed sa bukid (in the farmlands)," he said.
The government terminated peace negotiations with the rebel group back in 2017 in protest of the rebel atrocities committed against troops and the lives and properties of innocent people. The group was later branded as terrorists.