JOSE Maria "Joma" Sison, founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), passed away around 8:40 p.m. Friday, December 16, 2022. He was 83.
Th CPP, through its media outfit Ang Bayan, said in a statement that Sison died after a two-week confinement in a hospital in the Netherlands.
It is still unclear what caused his death, as of Saturday morning.
"The Filipino poletariat and toiling people grieve the death of their teacher and guiding light," the CPP said.
"Even as we mourn, we vow to continue to give all our strength and determination to carry the determination to carry the revolution forward guided by the memory and teachings of the people's beloved Ka Joma. Let the immortal revolutionary spirit of Ka Joma live on," it added.
Since the government and Sison's peace negotiations stalled in 1987, Sison lived in self-imposed exile in the Netherlands.
He founded the CPP on December 26, 1968 and co-founded the New People's Army, a Maoist armed struggle that has been ongoing since 1969.
According to the movement's Second Congress, Sison was a "Marxist-Leninist-Maoist extraordinaire and indefatigable revolutionary fighter."
Sison's name had been attached to several armed uprisings that transpired across the country throughout the years and had been blacklisted, but subsequently delisted, as a terrorist by the European Union. (SunStar Philippines)