Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria “Joma” Sison belied rumors that spread on social media recently about his supposed death, saying those who spread the false information were “liars.”
Rumors that Sison has died circulated on social media on Monday, Feb. 7, a day before he celebrated his 83rd birthday.
“I am still alive and I am celebrating my birthday today. Those spreading rumors that I am dead are liars,” he said in a statement on Tuesday, Feb. 8.
In fact, Sison said he has no life-threatening illness although he was experiencing inflammation on his legs due to rheumatoid arthritis.
“These go away in only two to four days after medication,” he said.
He revealed that he will also deliver two separate virtual lectures on fascism before and after World War II and on the 2022 elections in the Philippines, as well as introduce the virtual screening of El Barro de la Revolucion in Spain which portrays “the current people’s war in the Philippines.”
CPP information officer Marco Valbuena blamed the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), an anti-insurgency group created by President Duterte, behind the spread of the rumors about Sison’s death.
“Since around three days ago, the NTF-Elcac and its army of trolls on Facebook and Twitter have been circulating rumors of the passing away of Prof. Jose Ma. Sison, the CPP's founding chair. They desperately wish to whip up a frenzy but have succeeded only in making themselves look like fools,” Valbuena said in a statement sent to the Manila Bulletin.
The NTF-ELCAC has yet to issue a statement regarding this accusation.
Meanwhile, the Department of National Defense (DND) and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) earlier denied receiving information about Sison’s supposed demise.
“None,” was DND Secretary Delfin Lorenzana’s reply to reporters last Monday when he was asked whether he obtained a report about Sison’s death.
Col. Jorry Baclor, chief of the AFP public affairs office (PAO), also told the Manila Bulletin that the military has no knowledge about the rumors.
“Negative kami sa report. I also read that sa FB post and may nagtanong rin. Obviously rumor lang (We have negative information about the report. I also read it on Facebook and there were others who asked. Obviously these are just rumors),” he said last Monday.
Sison, an activist that adopts Maoist philosophies, founded the Communist Party of the Philippines, a leftist revolutionary organization, on Dec. 26, 1968. He is recognized as a political refugee and is in self-exile in the Netherlands.
The CPP has been waging a 53-year-old insurgency rebellion against the government along with its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA), and political wing, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).