By Florante S. Solmerin
Manila Standard Today
27 February 2012
Joma slips in , now in Iloilo , says officer | Manila Standard Today
JOSE Maria Sison, the Utrecht-based founder of the Communist Party of
the Philippines, arrived in the country in January and is now in Iloilo, a military source said on Sunday.
“We re verifying reports that he arrived in Iloilo last month on board a commercial plane from Hong Kong,” said the military intelligence officer who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak on the matter.
“We have intelligence reports that some big shot personalities are helping Mr. Sison while he is here,” the source said.
Last month, the Manila Standard reported that three allies of President Benigno Aquino III were asking Sison to return, and that he would be offered a Cabinet position for the sake of national reconciliation. The CPP denied the report.
Sison is the chief political consultant of the National Democratic Front, the negotiating group of the Communist Party of the Philippines and its military arm, the New People s Army. He sought political asylum in the Netherlands after his release from prison shortly after the late Corazon Aquino became President following the 1986 People Power Revolution that removed the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos from power.
The onagain offagain peace talks between the government and the
communists hit a snag on Feb. 14 last year after the rebels claimed that the government was continuing to arrest its members that they said were consultants to the peace talks.