By FIDEL V. AGCAOILI
Chairperson, NDFP Human Rights Committee
Maj. Gen. Jose T. Barbieto is reported by some Manila newspapers as having announced that Professor Jose Maria Sison, together with three women, is convicted for rebellion and sentenced to 12 to 14 years of imprisonment by the Davao city regional trial court. His canard is pure invention of military psywar. Prof. Sison cannot be convicted and sentenced for rebellion for the simple reason that he is outside of the jurisdiction of the Philippine state and that he is under the protection of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Refugee Convention.
By FIDEL V. AGCAOILI
Chairperson, NDFP Human Rights Committee
Maj. Gen. Jose T. Barbieto, area command chief of the Army’s Northeastern and Northern Mindanao Fourth Infantry (Diamond) Division, is reported by some Manila newspapers as having announced that Professor Jose Maria Sison, together with three women, is convicted for rebellion and sentenced to 12 to 14 years of imprisonment by the Davao city regional trial court.
The reactionary general is engaged in disinformation. His canard is pure invention of military psywar. It is calculated to malign and stigmatize the name of Prof. Sison. But in fact, the general exposes his utter ignorance of the law of the system which he is serving like a rabid dog as well as his contempt for the intelligence of the people and the mass media.
Prof. Sison cannot be convicted and sentenced for rebellion for the simple reason that he is outside of the jurisdiction of the Philippine state and that he is under the protection of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Refugee Convention. For him to be tried under Philippine law, the Philippine authorities must gain custody over his person and present him to the appropriate court for arraignment.
As chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Joint Monitoring Committee-NDFP, I call on the Philippine reactionary authorities to stop the silly and futile practice of adding the name of Prof. Sison to every case of rebellion in the Philippines or to any other case in which he is not at all involved and cannot be hailed to court for lack of jurisdiction.
The Arroyo regime and its military and police minions have presented themselves as fools for filing hundreds of false complaints against Prof. Sison since 2003 for the purpose of disinformation and psywar. The people know, as we have explained time and again, that he is not in any position to perform the functions that belong to the leading organs of the revolutionary forces in the Philippines.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the various command levels of the New People’s Army and the National Council of the NDFP are all based in the Philippines and make the decisions and orders for carrying out the Philippine revolution. The Arroyo regime and its military and police minions are foolish and malicious in claiming that the revolutionary forces and people in the Philippines are dependent on the orders of Prof. Jose Maria Sison.
