Long live the memory of Ka Joma! Strengthen the Party and advance the revolution!

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This article is available in PilipinoBisaya

The whole party and revolutionary movement give extraordinary honor to Jose Maria Sison (Amado Guerrero), founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and greatest Filipino and revolutionary leader of the past century. For so long, Ka Joma served as guide and beacon, bastion and bulwark of the Party and the Philippine revolution.

Ka Joma was a master of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the ideology of the proletariat. He led the Party’s re-establishment and the resurgence of the Philippine revolution. He studied the basic character of the semicolonial and semifeudal system in the Philippines, exposed the three monsters of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism that primarily enslave the broad Filipino masses, and illuminated the path of national-democratic revolution as the road towards the people’s liberation from poverty and oppression.

Ka Joma all-sidedly strengthened the Party. He taught and trained thousands of cadres of the Party’s Central Committee, central organs and regional committees, who led the Party’s nationwide expansion and strengthening. He led the establishment of the New People’s Army in 1969 and trained and guided the first ranks of Red commanders and fighters. In 1973, he led the establishment of the National Democratic Front (NDF). Under his leadership, the people’s war spread like a prairie fire across the country.

When captured by the enemy, he was subjected to nine years of torture inside the fascist dungeons, yet his revolutionary spirit prevailed. He was freed when Marcos’s dictatorship was dismantled by the powerful surge of the people’s struggle and armed struggle.

Ka Joma was forced into exile in 1987 when his passport was cancelled preventing his return to the country. For over 35 years, he stayed in The Netherlands in a small apartment with his family, and in the care of Filipino migrant workers. No matter the distance, he remained close to the Philippine revolution and gave sharp analyses and timely advice. Ka Joma’s exile worked to the advantage of the revolutionary movement as it provided him the conditions and opportunity to enrich the theory of the Philippine revolution based on its ongoing practice. When the Party was led astray, Ka Joma became the light that served as guide for the Second Great Rectification Movement.

He served as the NDF’s chief political consultant in peace negotiations with the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP) and excellently guided the forging of historical agreements in line with the aim of achieving just and lasting peace. Thus, the militarist agents of US imperialism, who oppose efforts to resolve the social and economic roots of civil war through negotiations, relentlessly persecuted him.

He was arrested in 2007 in a fabricated case which was eventually dismissed for lacking evidence. He was labeled a “terrorist” by the US and its puppets, an accusation dismissed in a European court in 2009. He was repeatedly accused of masterminding the Plaza Miranda (1971) bombing even though this was dismissed by a Manila court in 1994 for lack of evidence.

It is undeniable that in Philippine history, no one surpasses the work done by Ka Joma in rousing the Filipino people to stand up and fight. Millions of workers, peasants, pettybourgeois intellectual, ordinary employees and professionals across the country rose up, joined forces and took action under the Red flag and the torch of the revolution. All national-democratic activists, Red fighters and Party cadres began their enlightenment and roused by the “Philippine Society and Revolution” (PSR), the most comprehensive analysis of the country’s history and conditions.

Because of his leadership, lasting contribution, and lifelong dedication to advancing the Philippine revolution for genuine national freedom and democracy, Comrade Jose Maria Sison is a great hero of the Filipino people. Indeed, he is the greatest of all.

In his death, Ka Joma bequeathed the Party a golden treasure chest brimming with theory of the Philippine revolution. Let us use and further enrich it through our current practice and through the future of waging people’s democratic revolution to the socialist revolution. Its eternal brilliance will serve as our light through the difficult path. Keep his great memory and legacy eternally Red. Firmly continue the revolution which he started with our great martyrs and heroes.

Let us be masters in the theories and lessons left by Ka Joma. Carry forward a movement to review his writings, from the PSR to the “Five Volumes” collection of his articles. Tighten our grasp of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism which is the class standpoint, viewpoint and method of thinking of Ka Joma. A firm grasp of his ideas and guidance is one of the keys to further advancing the Philippine revolution.

The Communist Party of the Philippines is noble. When Ka Joma re-established it, he was aware of the Party’s role as a vanguard of the proletariat that would lead the new democratic revolution, and the entire historical period of the socialist revolution to communist society. It will cover the time beyond a person’s life or generation.

The Party was fortunate that Ka Joma’s life lasted for more than six decades for him to lead and guide the practical movement. In the second Congress in 2016, the Party paid tribute and expressed its gratitude to Ka Joma.

During Ka Joma’s lifetime, several lines of cadres have taken the reins of the Party’s leadership. Certainly, several more generations of Party cadres—perhaps some are yet to be born—will be readers and students of Ka Joma’s writings, as well as of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and will embrace and lead the great aspirations of the proletariat.

Our Central Committee has declared ten days of mourning that will end on the 54th anniversary of the Party. Let us dedicate this day to pay tribute to the memory of Ka Joma. Let us use this occasion to stand together, and reaffirm our determination to march forward and wave high the Red flag of the Party and revolution.

Long live the memory of Ka Joma! Strengthen the Party and advance the revolution!