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By Francis Earl A. Cueto Reporter
In a bizarre twist of fate, the
government that sought for decades to jail Jose Maria Sison now
feels obligated to defend him in a foreign court.
“It is our obligation to ensure
that the rights of our citizens are protected abroad,” said
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Franklin Ebdalin. But he refused to
elaborate how the department would provide legal assistance.
Sison, 68, is founder of the
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its military wing, the
New People’s Army (NPA). Sison is a Filipino citizen, but his
Philippine passport was canceled by the government, which wanted him
extradited to face criminal charges.
Sison fled to The Netherlands in
1987. He had applied for a political asylum but was not granted one.
He argued against deportation, saying he feared for his life in the
Philippines.
Ebdalin just replied with a smile
when reporters asked him if the government will move anew to
extradite Sison. Finally he said he would not answer the question
since they have yet to know the entire facts of the case.
Besides, the Philippines does not
have an extradition treaty with The Netherlands, Ebdalin said.
“We were all taken by
surprise,” Ebdalin replied when asked if he knew that Sison was
going to be arrested. He denied that the Philippine government had
asked the Dutch government’s help to arrest the communist leader.
Ebdalin said the Philippine
Embassy in The Netherlands was still determining the Dutch case
against Sison.
“We still don’t know what
happened, and we don’t know the law in The Netherlands,” Ebdalin
said.
According to the website of the
Dutch Public Prosecutor’s Office, Sison was arrested in Utrecht by
the International Crime Investigation Team of the Dutch National
Criminal Investigation Department to face the criminal charges for
his involvement in assassinations that took place in the
Philippines.
“The communist leader was
suspected of giving orders, from The Netherlands, to murder his
former political associates in Philippines, Romulo Kintanar and
Arturo Tabara,” according to the website.
Except for the apartment where
Sison lived, the Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department
searched the apartments belonging to his co-workers, seven of which
were in Utrecht and one in Abcoude.
Sison is to be indicted on
Friday, according to the website.
On January 23, 2003, the late NPA
leader Romulo Kintanar was shot 10 times in a Japanese restaurant in
Philippines. Kintanar, 50, bled to death.
The Dutch prosecutor’s website
also reported, “The assassination triggered off a huge commotion
in Philippines. It was claimed by the New People’s Army, in an
official publication in which the reference was made to a sentencing
by the special People’s Court. A special unit of the New
People’s Army allegedly punished Kintanar for his crimes against
the revolution and the people.”
The website report added that the
Dutch National Criminal Investigation Department is also
investigating Sison’s role in the assassinations of Tabara and his
son-in-law Stephen Ong on September 26, 2006.
Both were shot several times,
including in the head, as they stepped out of their car in parking
lot. The NPA also claimed responsibility for the killings.
According to literature
distributed by the CPP-NPA, Tabara was “a seasoned criminal and
fanatic contra-revolutionist.” He was killed because he and Ong
had supposedly resisted arrest by a special unit of the NPA.
Until the beginning of the 1990s,
Tabara was a member of the highest command of the NPA.
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