Denis Rogatyuk’s interview with José Mariá Sison is remarkable for what it does not address. Among the issues the article ignores are the Communist Party of the Philippines’ (CPP) history of killing its leftist critics, and Sison’s part in this policy of murder.

As a representative of the NDF, an organization under control of the party, Sison has always fully supported the actions of the CPP. From their side, the party pays respect to him as the ideologue of their movement. The CPP’s politics are those of Sison, and vice versa. Sison is not the sole leader of the CPP but no matter his official status, he still has considerable influence over it.

Today, this organization is very different from what it was in its heyday, in the mid-eighties. During the nineties, the CPP went through a series of acrimonious splits after the faction around Sison blocked the organization of a party-congress and ended debates over political strategy by imposing a return to Maoist orthodoxy. When it stabilized at the end of the decade, the party was much more homogeneous and tightly organized than before.