(Eagle News)–Apparently backtracking on his initial statement, Communist Party of the Philippines founder Jose Maria Sison on Tuesday, Aug. 21, said it looks like President Rodrigo Duterte will live long to stand trial before the International Criminal Court.
Sison made the pronouncement based on a Facebook Live video made by Special Assistant to the President Bong Go after Sison said there were reports the President had gone into a coma since Sunday, Aug. 19.
“If the video showing Duterte hotel-dating a young woman was really recorded on Monday night (Davao time), I am pleased to see that Duterte is still alive and that there is a chance of his living long enough to be held accountable for his crimes against the people and be tried by the people’s court or by the International Criminal Court,” Sison said in a statement posted in his Facebook account.
According to Sison, “unlike” the President, “I do not have any death wish for Duterte.”
“In fact, I wish him to live long enough to receive a warrant of arrest, unlike the so many thousands of victims of Oplans Tokhang and Kapayapaan,” he said.
Sison noted, however, that “the aforesaid video shows Duterte truly looking very tired and dispirited, his face still very dark and his right eye drooping.”
He said Duterte “looks like he just came from dialysis or some other kind of treatment on Sunday.”
Sison also noted what he said were Duterte’s contradicting statements that supposedly show the chief executive’s weak mental condition.
For instance, he said Duterte had said the CPP founder was dying, even if the chief executive also said he wanted Sison to live long.
Sison also cited what he said were the contradictory statements between Duterte, who said the CPP founder has been in and out of Dutch hospitals as a charity patient, and the military, who said Sison was living lavishly in the Netherlands.
“I agree with all the forces of the broad united front that Duterte is unfit for the position of president of even the semicolonial and semifeudal state of big compradors, landlords and corrupt bureaucrats,” Sison said.