National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr. and National Democratic Front of the Philippines negotiating panel chair Fidel V. Agcaoili
DAVAO CITY, Philippines — Prof. Jose Ma. Sison is very well and has fully recovered from his arthritis.
This is the clarification made by National Democratic Front of the Philippines negotiating panel chair Fidel V. Agcaoili in a statement issued on Saturday, July 21.
Agcaoili issued the statement amidst the claim recently made by National Security Adviser Hermogenes Esperon Jr., that Sison is seriously ill.
Agcaoili pointed out that the claim is false and branded Esperon as a pathological liar.
“He is up and about, conducting interviews here and there with journalists, student scholars, academics and foreign solidarity friends, and issuing statements left and right especially on the brewing Duterte fascist dictatorship in the Philippines as Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), as well as on significant events in the world as Chairperson of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS),” the statement said.
Agcaoili added that Sison’s mind remains as sharp as ever and his analysis of political situations as incisive, brilliant and comprehensive as before.
The NDFP chair further hit Esperon, saying that the national security adviser, when serving as Armed Forces of the Philippines Chief of Staff in 2006, had also made the ridiculous claim that the extrajudicial killings of activists were happening because of “internal purges” in the movement, even producing a document allegedly captured from a New People’s Army (NPA) camp as evidence.
But Esperon’s claims were dismissed by Prof. Philip Alston, the then UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Agcaoili added.
Alston, he said, had found Esperon’s claims as “especially unconvincing” and the document presented as bearing “all the hallmarks of a fabrication and cannot be taken as evidence of anything other than disinformation.”
Despite the blunder, Esperon continues to make false claims, such as on the health of Sison, Agcaoili added.
“He even implies that the GRP administrations of Fidel V. Ramos and Joseph E. Estrada have conspired with the NDFP in attempting to topple the Manila government by signing The Hague Joint Declaration, the Joint Agreement on Security and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL),” he said.
Agcaoili also suggested to Esperon to read the statements of the Communist Party of the Philippines, the National Operational Command of the NPA as well as that of the territorial units of the NDFP on the so-called localized peace talks.
He stressed that Esperon is only making road shows on the statements he made on the localized peace talks.
The national security adviser only meant to line the pockets of bureaucrats, military commanders, and fake surrenderers, Agcaoili added. (davaotoday.com)
