Without seeing dawn
Despite these small victories, Sison, for all his eruditeness as a writer and his alleged solid grounding on Marxism, may have grievously misread the development of world events.
The title of Stevan Javellana's only novel in English, 'Without Seeing the Dawn' could very well describe the plight of Jose Maria Sison, Communist Party of the Philippines founder who died in exile over the weekend in The Netherlands at the age of 83.
Sison, despite being away from home the last few years, is still regarded as the spiritual and thought leader of a revolutionary movement that seeks to overthrow the government through armed revolution and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat in the Philippines.
Along with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the terrorist New People's Army, the rebel movement sought inspiration from the unfinished revolution of Andres Bonifacio in establishing the communist front in 1968.
In four days, the CPP will celebrate its 54th anniversary under a pall of gloom with the passing of Sison, a former youth leader and university professor described as a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thinker and revolutionary leader.
The movement's armed wing, the New People's Army has been waging the longest-running insurgency in Asia under the leadership of Sison who was arrested in 1977 and held in solitary confinement for most of his years in detention. He was released in 1986 after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship.
When the peace talks with the administration of President Corazon Aquino collapsed in 1987, Sison fled to Europe in self-exile where he remained until his death. He was unable to return home after his passport was canceled by the government.
Peace negotiations, however, went on and off during the ensuing administrations after Aquino but suffered the same fate over accusations of ceasefire violations. In 2020, the Anti-Terrorism Council designated the CPP and the NPA as terrorist organizations while the NDF was declared such in 2021.
At the time of his death, Sison was chief political consultant of the NDF and chairperson emeritus of the International League of People's Struggles.
At the height of his leadership of the Left, Sison cited as essential to complementing his so-called armed revolution the coalition of legal fronts that include the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan ("New Nationalist Alliance" or "BAYAN"), Gabriela, the "women's alliance", the League of Filipino Students and the Alliance of Concerned Teachers among others.