“One can choose to believe the Reds are driven by ideals so solid they can make you abandon your life and take to the hills, sacrificing everything to overturn the status quo in order to establish a new order.”

How relevant is the communist ideology to the youth today?

Over three decades since establishing the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), does the name Joma Sison still ring a bell among millennials? Are they familiar with what he was fighting for when he formed the group and added elements of Maoism to its philosophy?

Armed fighting in different parts of the country has made rebellion almost a part of the Filipino’s consciousness. It seems it has always been there, in the background, sometimes turning so violent it gets splashed across front pages.

The security problems and rebellion have been an inherited disaster each administration has had to carry.

When President Rodrigo Duterte was elected in 2016, his pronouncements and ideas about healing the decades-old rifts in our land infused hope for many, even those who have lived in the peripheries of its madness throughout modern history. But it seems it could remain just a hope – the rollercoaster ride that is the peace talks between the communist party and this government is making some of us feel nauseous, frankly. It can be so tiresome to follow the ups and downs of this relationship they are staging.

One can choose to believe the Reds are driven by ideals so solid they can make you abandon your life and take to the hills, sacrificing everything to overturn the status quo in order to establish a new order. To have such strength of belief is admirable per se, but to have the stomach to inflcit violence on fellow Filipinos in the practice of such belief…not at all.

I believe many Filipinos only know of Joma Sison by reputation. Of course, when you google him, you might likely be overwhelmed by the information about the man. Such an interesting personality: born José María Canlás Sison on Feb. 8, 1939, his life is as colorful as the bold red color of the flag he had chosen to wave since the 1960s.

Joma Sison comes from a land-owning family in a town called Cabugao in northern Luzon.

As a young man, he was always interested in the plight of peasants in our country. In college, he distinguished himself as a magna cum laude graduate at the University of the Philippines, studying politics and literature. Sison felt strongly enough for the poor and oppressed that he joined the communist party in the country, forming a radical academic youth movement and later forming the CPP.

In his book, Filipino Society and Revolution, published under the pseudonym Amado Guerrero, Sison describes the Philippines as a “semi feudal and semi colonial country ruthlessly exploited by the American imperialists.” It was his idea to form rebel bases in different parts of the country which led to the New People’s Army.

That all happened decades ago, and through presidencies of Marcos and Cory Aquino, Joma was incarcerated then freed, now based in The Netherlands where he has projected his influence to the CPP over the years.

An article in The Daily Guardian on Aug. 7, 2017, however, posits the CPP founding chairman may be losing influence on the NPA. “Former Iloilo board member and ex-NPA Panay member Pablito Araneta said he is ‘no longer privy to the inner circle’ and he is basing his opinion on the present activities of the rebels,” the report goes, adding: “I don’t think Joma has full control over the NPA right now. He is losing control,” Araneta told The Daily Guardian on Air over Aksyon Radyo on Aug. 5, 2017. He cited the series of attacks by the NPA against police and military troops despite the ongoing peace talks between the Philippine government and the National Democratic Front (NDF).

Meanwhile, recent reports from the Armed Forces of the Philippines also indicate the decline in NPA atrocities over the past year.

Of course, Joma Sison has decried such notions. In another paper’s (April 2, 2018) report, he said the defense chief, Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, “mocks the NPA as supposedly a failure in waging armed revolution. But he obscures and denies the fact that against tremendous odds, the NPA has grown and gained strength nationwide from its modest beginnings in the second district of Tarlac, with only nine automatic rifles and 26 single-shot rifles and handguns.”

Lorenzana, during the NPA’s 49th anniversary this year, had called the NPA a “failure” for its “irrelevant” cause and “bankrupt” ideology.

I suppose the animosity, at least, is alive and well in this situation.

When it comes to talking peace, however, perhaps there is more at stake now, such as pride or ego or just that very human tendency to reject the thought of losing an argument. We can only hope that the parties involved will revert to real issue, the ideals that started it all.