Palace: Joma still a terrorist despite EU ruling

Malacañang is assessing its next move after the European Union’s Court of Justice overturned a decision of the EU governments to freeze the assets of self-exiled communist leader Jose Maria Sison.

National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales and Presidential Adviser for the Peace Process Jesus Dureza, however, stressed in separate interviews that the decision of the Luxembourg-based court does not delist Sison from the EU roster of terrorists.

“The European court overturned a ruling of a lower court on the freezing of Joma’s assets, not the (terrorist) listing,” Dureza told reporters in a press conference at his office in Ortigas.

He said the reason behind the court’s decision was that there was no due process involved in freezing Sison’s assets. The EU governments in particular failed to explain to the communist leader why his assets were frozen.

“It’s more of a procedural lapse, but I have not read the decision. I would not venture other implications of the decision,” he said.

Gonzales said the latest development in Sison’s case would be discussed by the Cabinet security cluster at  Malacañang along with the implementation of the Human Security Act or the anti-terrorism law.

He said the Cabinet will try to have a teleconference with Philippine diplomats in Brussels to be apprised of the latest developments.

“You know we have not really been talking to the European community about Joma Sison but maybe this time we will,” he said without elaborating on the issues the government will take.

He said he expects the concerned EU countries to make further representations on Sison’s case. “Normally, the Europeans don’t want to be interfered with so I guess they will make their own moves.”

He said he was not aware of the value of Sison’s assets even as he urged media to investigate reports on the communist leader’s financial sources.

Sison was founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines in the late 1960s and went in exile to the Netherlands in 1987.

The communist insurgency has been raging in the Philippines for more than 30 years, claiming the lives of more than 60,000 people.

Peace talks between the government and the Netherlands-based National Democratic Front (NDF), the umbrella organization of the underground and aboveground mainstream communist movement in the Philippines, have bogged down since 2005 when Sison and other NDF leaders withdrew from the negotiations, saying it expects the Arroyo administration to fall. – Paolo Romero