Only a few people on their deathbeds could wholeheartedly assert that they have lived a full life. Jose Maria Sison is definitely one of them. To dedicate one’s life to national and social liberation is a noble feat, but to inspire millions to serve the people through one’s enduring wisdom and unwavering determination is an eternal fulfillment.
However massive his contributions are, the struggle for social change does not end with him, unlike what his adversaries have claimed. There is a movement much larger and greater than him that will continue to serve the people.
The state's military and foot soldiers, like the former spokesperson of the infamous counterinsurgency task force, unsurprisingly, were euphoric about Sison's death on December 16. Some pointed out an irony: the clan who spurred Sison's radical ideology is also the one who will see its demise. One went so far as to say that the movement has now become obsolete and irrelevant with the Communist Party of the Philippines' (CPP) founder's passing.
Those who spout such claims have never understood society. They believe we run explicitly on ideology and lofty ideals alone, but that goes against the core of Sison's ideological bases: ideas, principles, and theories come from what is material. Our idea of liberation comes not from imagination but from our daily experience of exploitation, and it is the very fuel of existing uprisings and mass movements.
Claims that the struggle for freedom and democracy will end due to the death of one man also come from those who write such statements precisely to protect those we are rising in arms against. Sison believed the Philippine society is one where two forces contradict: the few elites and the deprived many. Those at the top live off the suffering of others, and so for our afflictions to end, the elites have to be stripped of their wealth and properties. But this is not easy, as the elites have soldiers, institutions, spokespersons, and writers, too, who will quell any hint of desire for freedom.
Sison knew changing society is not an intellectual exercise. In 1964, he co-founded Kabataang Makabayan, a youth organization forwarding national democracy. In 1968, he chaired the CPP whose objective is to wage a revolution that will take back lands from landlords to distribute them to peasants, unshackle the country from foreign dependence, and dismantle the corrupt and violent bureaucracy. This radical idea has been spat on and vilified mainly by those who have dominated society’s laws and lands for so long.
Sison's teachings became the life and blood of grassroots organizations aiming to empower the marginalized. Because the people’s tangible experiences of systemic malaises have always existed and continue to trickle in the narrowest crevices of society, a great number of people have been aroused and mobilized to take on the challenge for social liberation.
Under Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s administration, Sison was detained for nine years and was then released in 1986. While visiting the Netherlands two years after his emancipation, the government under Corazon Aquino canceled his passport, and charges were filed against him due to the Anti-Subversion Law of the Philippines. Since then, he and Julie de Lima, his wife, had been living in exile. However the distance, they did not stop being one with the struggle for independence and democracy. And even in his final moments, Sison believed in the revolution.
“Some fifteen or so minutes before Joma took his last breath, he was still talking about ensuring the revolution would win and advance to socialism,” said de Lima in a short note to the CPP’s 54th anniversary on December 26.
Mobilizations against oppressive state laws will persist, calls for justice for workers will be louder, and the resistance to tyrannical governance will be stronger. Sison is but one person; thousands of young people will have big shoes to fill, but the fight will continue.
The national democratic movement is not dead. As long as there are people who unjustly exercise their authority, the subdued will always retaliate. To forcibly silence the mass movement is to grasp at straws. It is futile to stifle equity because people who have been made aware of the rights they deserve will not yield to injustice again. A person, once radicalized, will continue to advocate for a democratic nation and society. This is the future that Sison has paved the way for, and it is up to us to heed this call or to perpetually grapple with oppression. ●
Jose Maria Sison founded the Communist Party of the Philippines, in 1968, having applied the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to Philippine history in building the party’s philosophy of national democracy with a socialist perspective. After a two-week confinement in the hospital, Sison passed at the age of 83, December 16, 2022.
