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THE Philippine National Police (PNP) on Sunday is
seeking the help of the international police community for the
immediate arrest of exiled Filipino communist leader, Prof. Jose
Maria Sison.
Sison, who has been living in
self-exile in the Netherlands, has been charged anew by local
authorities with robbery and murder of Senior Insp. Alberto
Montecalvo, police chief of Pio V. Corpuz, Masbate, last Friday.
The PNP chief, Director General
Oscar Calderon, said in a statement that the National Police would
ask the International Police Organization (International) to issue a
red notice for Sison.
“An Interpol red notice is the
closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use today
based on a lawful arrest order against a person who is wanted for
prosecution,” Calderon said in the statement.
A red notice is a listing of
wanted persons the Interpol circulates to its member-countries in
which persons on the list are place on lookout list by foreign
police agencies.
“Persons listed on the red
notice are wanted by national jurisdictions and the Interpol’s
role is to assist the national police forces in identifying or
locating these persons with a view to arresting and/or having them
deported,” said Calderon.
He added that they are also
seeking the same alert notice for Sison’s co-respondents in the
murder-robbery case who might have fled abroad and were also covered
by a warrant of arrest.
Charged along with Sison before
the Masbate Prosecutor’s Office are Rogelio Sison, alias “Ka
Randy”; Dindo Masanta, alias “Ka Buddy”; and several other NPA
members.
Sison, along with party-list Rep.
Satur Ocampo of Bayan Muna and National Democratic Front chief
negotiator Luis Jalandoni, was also subject of warrant of arrest
issued by a Leyte Regional Trial Court Branch 18.
The court issued the warrant of
arrest for multiple charges in connection with the murder of
suspected government spies in the communist underground movement in
Leyte.
Government recovered 67
“skeletal remains” of communist purging in August 2006 in a
shallow mass grave in Barangay Kaulisihan, a remote village in
Inopacan town.
Former New People’s Army (NPA)
rebels led government troops to the grave site and said that the
mass murders were carried out based on orders from the communist
central committee, which was then headed by Sison and Ocampo.
For his part, National Security
Council Adviser Norberto Gonzales on Sunday called on Rep. Satur
Ocampo to come out and face the charges and “let the court
decide.” He explained that the government’s intensified legal
campaign against local communist leaders is not just aimed at
eliminating personalities identified with the CPP-NPA. “We want
them to denounce armed rebellion and be honest in doing so,” he
said.
While he expressed dismay that
Ocampo is going to jail for the case of mass murder and not the
rebellion case he filed in 2006, he said the multiple murder charges
was filed by the Inter-Agency Legal Action Group (IALAG), which he
established as national security chief.
Meanwhile, the council of leaders
of Peace Advocates Truth, Justice and Healing (PATH) issued a
statement on Saturday critical of what they called “politicizing
the purges.” The statement came following reports that a warrant
of arrest was issued against Rep. Satur Ocampo for his participation
in the CPP-NPA purges.
“While the victims of the
purges have long sought a just resolution to the issue and
accountability from the perpetrators, the timing and manner of the
government’s brand of ‘justice’ are inappropriate,” said the
statement. “Its politically biased intent itself may compromise
the legitimacy of the purge victims’ cause. We fear that the hate
and paranoia that drive the government and its agencies to go
against the leadership of CPP-NPA and Bayan Muna is of the same
variety as the hate and paranoia that we have suffered from in the
past and continue to rally against to this day.”
 --Anthony
Vargas and
Sam Mediavilla
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