Much-awaited peace – or the highest-possible honor in the arts in the Philippines.
Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder and current National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NCFP) consultant Jose Maria Sison is “open” to coming home after decades of exile in the event of two things: the “highly significant development” in peace talks between the government and Philippine Communists and… the chance that he’s declared National Artist for Literature.
In a media statement the NDFP said Sison was open to coming home should peace negotiations result in “the amnesty and release of all political prisoners listed by the NDFP and the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on Social and Economic Reforms.” The Philippine government and the NDFP are currently holding peace talks, the 4th round of which happened in the Netherlands.
But the founder of the CPP added another motivation for coming back home: his supposed nomination as National Artist for Literature (Poetry and Essay).
“He had just learned that creative writers, performing artists and mass leaders, including a group from the Concerned Artists of the Philippines, are nominating him for the National Artist Award,” read the NDFP statement.
The group also added: “[Sison] welcomed the nomination, saying this could also be a ‘compelling reason’ for him to come home. But he modestly said that at this moment, he could not presume to win the award.”
Sison has been living in Europe since the late 80s, following the collapse of peace talks then.
But wait...
Despite Sison’s openness and optimism, there’s a huge setback to his homecoming. The CPP and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, is still in the United States’ terrorist list.
It means Sison, as the CPP’s founding member, can be arrested by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) the moment he steps outside of the European Union, which has long delisted him from its list of terrorists.
He had earlier expressed hope he would be returning home in July 2016, amid high optimism over peace talks between the NDFP and President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. Duterte was Sison’s student in the 60s.
But a lot of things have happened since then. The ceasefire between the two sides ended, and peace talks were put on hold. The two sides eventually patched things up and have agreed to return to the negotiating table.
A new ceasefire, however, is still up for talks.
The 78-year-old Sison is also a known poet and essayist. In 1986, he won the Southeast Asia WRITE Award for poetry and the essay. He is also author to over 25 books, according to the NDFP.
Whether he’ll be declared a National Artist or not is entirely up to his former student. The President picks from a list of nominees by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
“Creative writers, performing artists and mass leaders are now urging the CCP and NCAA to announce the guidelines and forms for nomination within April,” the NDFP said in their statement. – Rappler.com
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