Professor Jose Maria Sison Addresses San Francisco Crowd on the 35th Anniversary of the Declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines
The 68-year old Political Prisoner under the Marcos Dictatorship Receives Accolades and Moral Support from the San Francisco Audience
San Francisco--The sense of anticipation steadily grew among over 75 participants at a forum hosted by BAYAN USA and International League of People's Struggle (ILPS) at the Manilatown Center in downtown San Francisco. They were about to have a question and answer session via internet audio chat from the Netherlands with the Philippine revolutionary leader Jose Maria Sison. Sison was arrested several weeks ago by Dutch authorities on trumped-up charges of murdering two-ex guerrilla fighters in the Philippines. Sison was released on September 13 after a Dutch court found no sufficient evidence linking him to the murders.The program titled Justice for JOMA, featured a new 20 minute film by Collision Course Video Productions. This video presented Sison's role in the resurgence of the Philippine national democratic movement in the late 60's, his nine years of imprisonment during the Marcos regime, the threats of his life that forced him into political exile in the Netherlands twenty years ago, and his view of the current crisis of the imperialist system.
Doug Norberg of ILPS spoke about Sison's work as chairperson of ILPS. Dave Pugh of ILPS suggested that a trigger for the arrest and detention of Sison may have been the stinging fact finding reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and by UN Special Rapporteur Philip Alston. The reports focused on the killings and forced disappearances of over 1,000 political activists in the Philippines that pointed to the involvement of the Philippine military.
Members of the local Filipino community read poems from Sison's collection of poetry "Prison and Beyond", and shared songs in Tagalog and English. San Francisco indie rock musician Sergio Robledo-Maderazo of From Monuments to Masses, spoke of Professor Sison's contributions as a cultural worker and artist.
Sison's voice appeared via live internet chat and answered a half dozen questions including whether he has ever grown tired of the attempts by the Philippine government to persecute him. Sison answered simply, "I thrive on struggle. The more they try to silence me, the more resolve I have to fight for peace and genuine democracy in our homeland."
In response to a question about the role of culture in the people's struggle, Sison said that visual art and music is often superior to political speeches: "Can you think of people memorizing a political speech the way they can learn dozens of revolutionary songs by heart?"
Sison called on people to "remain vigilant and militant" in defense of his political rights. Even after 17 days of solitary confinement and 7 days of intensive interrogation, Sison stated that the Dutch, Philippine and U.S. governments are still trying to silence him with the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines offering to help the Dutch government prosecute him, as well as the deployment of six Dutch intelligence agents sent to the Philippines to fabricate more "evidence" against him.
The charges against Sison have not yet been dropped. The Dutch prosecutor's office will appeal the decision to release him from detention at an upcoming hearing on September 26th. Sison faces no criminal charges of any kind in the Philippines. In fact, the same trumped up charges against Sison were dropped by the Philippine Supreme Court earlier this year.
The forum was only one of many activities organized in over 20 countries since Sison's arrest in late August 2007 to call on the Dutch government to stop persecuting Filipino progressives, to immediately drop the false charges against Sison, and to cease harassment of political exiles in the Netherlands.
For more info:
nc@bayanusa.org
To view photos from this event, visit:
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| Justice For JoMa Forum |
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