Word: sison
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...Ruby Sison is waiting for someone to kill her. I met Sison a few months ago at a cemetery in Kidapawan, a town on the lawless Philippine island of Mindanao. We were paying our respects to the activists and journalists George and Maricel Vigo, who were shot dead in June in broad daylight by motorbike-riding assassins while returning home to their five children. The killers were still at large, and local reporters were braving multiple death threats by keeping the Vigo murders in the news. A friend and left-wing activist, Sison had heard that...
...Sison, I'm relieved to say, is still alive. But the slaughter of reporters, leftists, lawyers, labor leaders, priests, students and human-rights workers in the Philippines continues with a fury that recalls the darkest days of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship. Nearly 800 such people have been killed since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo took power in 2001, reports the local human-rights group Karapatan, while Amnesty International recorded 51 cases of what it calls "political killings" in the first six months of this year, compared with 66 in all of 2005. When it comes to journalists?46 have been killed...
...investigate alleged army offenses. The rift between the civilian and the military factions has been seized upon by the Communists as yet another reason not to accept Aquino's invitation to disarm. "How can she secure her share of responsibility in the negotiations," says Communist Party Founder Jose Maria Sison, "without having full control of the armed forces...
...however, the new leader may mostly be a victim of her single great achievement: returning political freedom to the Philippines. It was Aquino, after all, who released Sison from jail, along with some 500 other political prisoners. She also permitted Marcos loyalists to protest her rule for three straight weeks in the streets of Manila. And she has actively encouraged the open questioning that Marcos so forcefully muzzled. "Less than 100 days is not enough time for a government to produce an impact," says Businessman Leonardo Alejandrino, "especially a government that almost by its own admission was not ready...
While the struggle over the missing millions was going on, President Aquino also had to deal with more routine government business. Last week she kept her campaign pledge by releasing all known political prisoners of the Marcos era. Among them were were Jose Maria Sison, 47, founder and former chairman of the outlawed Communist Party; Bernabe Buscayno, 42, the alleged founder of the New People's Army, the party's guerrilla arm; and two members of a rebel hit squad. The four reputed Communists were freed over the objections of Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Chief of Staff Fidel...