The imminent end of local communism

Jose Maria Sison, the self-exiled leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines, died last 16 December 2002 in Utrecht, the Netherlands. He was 83 years old.

Sison's death effectively renders the CPP leaderless. That goes as well for the two other components of the troika of Philippine communism, namely, the New People's Army and the National Democratic Front. Sison had been the focal point of the CPP-NPA-NDF troika for over 50 years.

Of course, somebody will eventually succeed Sison as the new helmsman of the CPP-NPA-NDF troika.

Sison's successor, however, will inherit nothing more than a discredited, moribund political party (the CPP), a ragtag armed group of bandits operating in the countryside that live off the "revolutionary taxes" they extort from business enterprises in the provinces (the NPA), and a monotonous sort of "think tank" that churns in political propaganda that may have sounded relevant generations ago (the NDF).

That successor will hardly be significant to the majority of young Filipinos who either never heard of Sison, or consider him only as a marginal historical personality of the 20TH century Philippines. If these young Filipinos hardly know anything about Sison, chances are that they couldn't care less if Sison has a successor.

Sison's death came just ten days a head of 26 December 2022, the 54th anniversary of Sison's establishment of the CPP as a communist group to rival that of the old communist party in the country, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas.

A day after Sison's death, the CPP-NPA-NDF troika gave orders to all its cadres in the countryside to mark the anniversary with a 21-gun salute at dawn on 26 December.

When Sison was still in his seventies, local communism was already fast losing ground and seemed important only to a few misguided young recruits. With Sison gone, local communism is expected to become insignificant, with only a few die-hard supporters towing the red line.

Sison's grand plan to violently overthrow the duly constituted government of the Philippines and replace it with a communist vassal state that takes its orders from Beijing was a total failure.

First, Sison's blueprint for a communist Philippines was aborted in September 1972 when then-President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. placed the entire country under martial law. That timely measure allowed the government to detain communists and forced those still in circulation to flee to the mountains. Martial law saved the country from communism. That is why the communists continue to hate President Marcos Sr. to this day.

Sison's luxurious life in exile in the Netherlands after President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino seized power from President Marcos Sr. in 1986 disillusioned many local communist cadres from continuing with the rebel movement. Why should they die in Philippine jungles, a sacrifice to Sison's godless communism, while Sison enjoyed a luxurious lifestyle in Europe?

Later on, the local communists entered into an alliance with Leni Robredo and Kiko Pangilinan, the de facto bets for president and vice president, respectively, of the much-despised Liberal Party in the May 2022 elections. The Reds hitched their political future to the pinklawan tandem, and lost miserably.

In the same elections, several party-list candidates for Congress with known sympathies for the communists were voted out of office.

As a consequence, the Reds have now become politically irrelevant and inconsequential.

Even the University of the Philippines, the main recruitment ground for young communist cadres, is slowly losing its reputation as a sanctuary for Reds and radical elements.

Police personnel used to be banned from UP campuses, but that arrangement is no more. Like every piece of publicly owned real estate, UP campuses are now patrolled by operatives from the Philippine National Police. With the PNP's presence, communist activities in UP campuses today, including recruitment, will be monitored.

Even incumbent UP Diliman Chancellor Fidel Nemenzo, seen by many as a Red sympathizer, lost his bid to be UP President earlier this month.