Will the people's revolution end with the peace pact? NO. Only thru a revolution would a revolution end.

I'm glad that, if Mr. Jose Maria Sison and Mr. Duterte are to be believed, peace is just around the corner. Sison says there may be a peace pact after six months. Well and good.

It's good because we will achieve that elusive peace which we have so longed for for many years. We have been fighting for decades, and the peace negotiations are very promising, they say.

The thing that bothers me is that thing called decommissioning of the New People's Army (NPA). Is this good?

Yes, if we have achieved what the people want--a truly, just and humane society. Basing on what is happening, we haven't achieved this. The fact is--there is a very big possibility that the very scourge we fought against for several decades is getting a new lease of life.

This revolution would only end if we have created or established a People's Democratic Government---a government truly responsive to the needs of the many. There must be a dictatorship of the masses--not a dictatorship of a few sons and daughters of old traditional oligarchic families, and surely not, I stress, not a dictatorship of pseudo-revolutionaries who think that they represent what the masses want when they do not.

It is very disheartening to hear Joma lauding the end of this enterprise which he started way back in the sixties. Don't ever tell me that he's abandoning this struggle only after forty or so years? He was the one who proposed a protracted people's war and when this thesis was criticized before, Joma was the one who gave scathing remarks against those who said that this strategy was not the perfect means towards revolutionary victory. Joma even branded those who questioned him as "counter-revolutionaries."

Now that he's the one who is giving up this struggle, this fight, this so-called people's revolution, what now, Mr. Sison? How do we call you now?

I shudder at the thought that, in the future, no one would actually represent an oppressed people, and everybody has been coerced already because the oldies who led this revolution has given up. I'm not surprised with what Joma did---he has been away for decades already and he does not know the real sentiments of revolutionaries still fighting for the success of a true revolution.

Duterte's success is basically the variable that disproved Joma's revolutionary thesis. In his numerous writings, Joma wrote that the people will eventually seize political power thru a revolution. Now, we know how it would really end---with the old guards doing exactly what the old PKP guys did in their generation.

Joma was quick to criticize the Lava brothers when they cooperated with the government in their lifetime. Joma once criticized Nilo Tayag (now a Bishop) when he helped former dictator Marcos during the dictatorship. And so did several other Leftist personalities under the Akbayan banner when they began worshipping a near autistic leader and training their sights to see things always in yellows.

Now, that there is a new dictator on the block, is it Joma's time to do a Lava, a Tayag or an Etta?

Some are not entirely surprised with what Joma and some of the old guards are doing--they are just being true to their roots, their social class.

These people, including Joma, belonged to the privileged class, and even Joma admitted in one of his books that he was the son of a haciendero of the North. Joma's father was not just a haciendero, but a big landlord. Joma was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

For him, maybe, this revolution is just a concept. For many of those who believed in Socialism, of the things which Karl Marx wrote, it is not just a concept but an achievable goal. For most of those who entered the people's army, the struggle was their life, and it was never seen as a picnic of sorts or just an outlet to let off steam. No.

A new Party will surely emerge from the very loins of the masses, for as long as the roots of the social conflict remain and this society remains under the control of the Oligarchs, and capitalism remains deeply rooted in this country.

Only thru a revolution would a revolution end.