News Roundup 17 December 2022
Dec 17, 2022 • 4 min Read
CPP founder Joma Sison dies, 83 | PHILSTAR.COM – The Communist Party of the Philippines announced that its founding chairperson Jose Maria Sison died Friday night after a two-week confinement in the hospital. He was 83. Sison, a former youth leader and university professor who founded the CPP and the New People’s Army, had been in exile in the Netherlands since the late 1980s. He had also often been rumored to have died. The party on Saturday morning said that this time, it was true. “The Filipino proletariat and toiling people grieve the death of their teacher and guiding light,” the CPP said Saturday in a statement as it gave its “highest possible tribute” to Sison whom it called a “great Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thinker, patriot, internationalist and revolutionary leader.” “Even as we mourn, we vow to continue to give all our strength and determination to carry the revolution forward guided by the memory and teachings of the people’s beloved Ka Joma,” the CPP said further. The Palace and the Armed Forces of the Philippines have yet to issue statements on Sison’s death. Sison founded the CPP on December 26, 1968 and the New People’s Army as its armed wing the following year. The NPA has since been waging the longest-running insurgency in Asia. He was arrested in 1977 and held in solitary confinement for most of his years in detention before his release in 1986 after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship. After peace talks with the administration of then President Corazon Aquino failed in 1987, Sison fled to Europe in self-exile, where he remained until his death. He was unable to return home because the government had cancelled his passport and because of concerns for his safety and security. At the time of his death, Sison was chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, which represents the CPP and NPA at peace talks. He was also chairperson emeritus of the International League of People’s Struggles.
DND on Joma Sison’s death: ‘Greatest stumbling block to PH peace is gone’ | INQUIRER.NET – The death of exiled communist leader Jose Maria Sison marks the end of the “greatest stumbling block to peace” in the country, the Department of National Defense (DND) said Saturday. “The greatest stumbling block of peace for the Philippines is gone; let us now give peace a chance,” the DND said. The DND added that Sison’s death is symbolic of the “crumbling hierarchy” of the Philippine communist movement. “The death of Jose Maria Sison is but a symbol of the crumbling hierarchy of the CPP-NPA-NDF, which he founded to violently put himself in power,” the DND added in a statement, referring to the Communist Party of the Philippines, its armed wing the New People’s Army (NPA) and its political arm the National Democratic Front (NDF). Sison died peacefully in a hospital in Utrecht, the Netherlands on Friday, at 8:40 p.m., Philippine time, according to the communist official publication Ang Bayan. He was 83. The DND however lamented that with his death, Sison was not brought to justice and to answer for his alleged crimes.
Teachers file maternity leaves ‘11 times in 3 years’ | INQUIRER.NET – Research shows that the marsupial is the only animal that is always pregnant. But such findings may now be up for dispute, if this case being investigated by the Department of Education (DepEd) proves to be true and not a scam. The DepEd on Friday said it had formed a fact-finding committee to look into an alleged “maternity leave scam” among teachers. In a radio interview, the agency’s spokesperson Michael Poa said it had begun ““to check the veracity of the statements given by the whistleblower” that some teachers had filed maternity leaves “up to 11 times in three years.” Poa was referring to an earlier claim made by an official of the DepEd-Division of Taguig City Pateros (DepEd-Tapat), Ellery Quintia, who in an ABS-CBN interview presented documents showing that one teacher received multiple maternity leave benefits from 2016 to 2019. Under the Expanded Maternity Leave Law or Republic Act No. 11210, the Social Security System (SSS) pays qualified SSS members a cash benefit equivalent to 100 percent of their average daily salary credit. The law, enacted in 2018, increased the maternity leave period from 60 days to 105 days for female workers with an option to extend for an additional 30 days without pay, and even granting an additional 15 days for solo mothers. “We are currently assessing whether we can confirm those statements but for now, we assigned officers from the regional office, instead of the schools division office, to investigate the matter in order to maintain impartiality,” said Poa. He also encouraged the whistleblower to come forward and give a formal statement to the DepEd.
