MANILA, Philippines (Updated 10:51 p.m.) — The Communist Party of the Philippines announced that its founding chairperson Jose Maria Sison died Friday night after a two-week confinement in the hospital. He was 83.
Sison, a former youth leader and university professor who founded the CPP and the New People's Army, had been in exile in the Netherlands since the late 1980s. He had also often been rumored to have died. The party on Saturday morning said that this time, it was true.
“The Filipino proletariat and toiling people grieve the death of their teacher and guiding light,” the CPP said Saturday in a statement as it gave its “highest possible tribute” to Sison whom it called a “great Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thinker, patriot, internationalist and revolutionary leader.”
"Even as we mourn, we vow to continue to give all our strength and determination to carry the revolution forward guided by the memory and teachings of the people's beloved Ka Joma," the CPP said further.
The Palace and the Armed Forces of the Philippines have yet to issue statements on Sison's death.
Sison founded the CPP on December 26, 1968 and the New People’s Army as its armed wing the following year. The NPA has since been waging the longest-running insurgency in Asia.
He was arrested in 1977 and held in solitary confinement for most of his years in detention before his release in 1986 after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship.
After peace talks with the administration of then President Corazon Aquino failed in 1987, Sison fled to Europe in self-exile, where he remained until his death. He was unable to return home because the government had cancelled his passport and because of concerns for his safety and security.
At the time of his death, Sison was chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, which represents the CPP and NPA at peace talks. He was also chairperson emeritus of the International League of People's Struggles.
Peace negotiations between the Philippine government and communist rebels went on-and-off during the administrations following Aquino.
Rodrigo Duterte, who had billed himself as being socialist and from the political left, restarted peace talks in 2016, but these collapsed over accusations of ceasefire violations.
Duterte then declared the CPP and NPA as terrorist groups, although a court has yet to formally declare them as such.
The Anti-Terrorism Council designated the two groups as terrorist in 2020. The National Democratic Front of the Philippines, which represents the CPP and NPA at peace talks, was designated a terrorist group in 2021.