By Cynthia Balana
Philippine Daily Inquirer
September 22, 2010

MANILA, Philippines—Communist Party of the Philippines founding leader Jose Ma. Sison Tuesday warned President Benigno Aquino III not to make the same mistake of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos as well as his late mother Corazon Aquino of relying on military force to quell the insurgency.

In a statement on the commemoration of the 38th year of the imposition of martial law, Sison, who is based in Utrecht, The Netherlands, said using military force against the revolutionary movement would “only make it grow.”

When it comes to dealing with insurgency, he said Aquino “has a tendency to rule like the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, or even like his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino.”

Both former presidents, he said, had “tried in vain” to use military force to defeat the revolutionary movement instead of focusing on peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in order to address the roots of the civil war.”

He said it was important to commemorate the declaration of martial law today in order to recall the 14-year long fascist dictatorship and “the gross and systematic infliction of violence and suffering on the broad masses of the people and the steady growth of the revolutionary forces until there was a convergence of contradictory forces that effected the overthrow of the fascist dictator on February 25, 1986.”

Sison said it was also useful to remember the years of dictatorship “to prevent the rise to power of the junior of Ferdinand Marcos and his other political heirs but also more urgently to struggle against the manifest plan of the son of Benigno Aquino to beef up the military, use his power to enlarge the wealth of his family and cronies and seek to destroy the revolutionary movement of the people.”

“Irony of ironies! The son of the underdog and outstanding murder victim of the Marcos fascist regime is practically aping the fascist dictator,” said Sison, who was given amnesty and released from prison by Aquino’s mother.

Sison noted Mr. Aquino’s decision to increase the budget of the military by 81 percent, ostensibly to respond to the growing population.

He also criticized the 123 percent increase in the budget of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), which he accused of being “the chief partner of the military in so-called base-denial operations and forcing the evacuation of the people from their homes and land.”

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