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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 from --> click me!
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