In commemoration of the second death anniversary of Jose Maria Sison, the JMS Legacy Foundation organized a hybrid event on December 15 to honor Jose Maria Sison, his life and his works. During the event, “Ang Gabay: commemorating and and carrying on the legacy of Jose Maria Sison,” comrades and friends from all over the world, paid their respects and gave their tributes to Jose Maria Sison and his revolutionary legacy. The different speakers provided inspiring and thought-provoking perspectives from their personal encounters with “Ka Joma” and his works.
Julie de Lima, the keynote speaker, set the tone with her recollections on the highlights of her life with Ka Joma in their life-long partnership as revolutionaries from their youth to their life in the underground and the accompanying dangers to life and limb up to their life in exile. Many of her insights could only come from her intimate knowledge of Ka Joma’s thoughts and motivations that influenced his actions in the course of their life-long partnership as a revolutionary couple. She gave an insider’s view into some of the important nodal points in the history of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the revolutionary movement, especially through the First Great Rectification Movement and the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
Louie Jalandoni focused his speech on Ka Joma’s role in first setting the correct path of the Philippine revolution through the First Rectification movement and then making sure the revolution remained on the correct path of advance through the Second Rectification Movement by leading the struggle against the erroneous lines being peddled by a few elements within the Party who eventually turned renegades; and through the Third Rectification Movement to correct the Party and the movement of wrong tendencies hindering the revolution’s further advance.
Judy Taguiwalo spoke of how Ka Joma had impacted her life and her generation of veterans of the First Quarter Storm and Ka Joma’s continuing impact on the current generation of Filipino activists and revolutionaries. Mhing Gomez, National Chairperson of Anakbayan, gave a view from the perspective of the youth in the Philippines on how Ka Joma and his works have inspired and continue to inspire and motivate his generation to commit themselves to the struggle of the Filipino people for national and social liberation. Sarah Raymundo who with her podcast “Itanong mo kay Prof” had engaged Ka Joma through interviews and had brought to her audience his views on various topics of urgent importance to the struggle in the Philippines, also drew special attention to Ka Joma’s insights on the world situation and their implications to the struggles of the people of the world against imperialism and reaction.
Azra Sayeed, current secretary general of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) and Angel, a young women’s movement and trade union activist in the US, gave moving inputs highlighting Ka Joma’s impact as an internationalist. Azra Sayeed spoke of Ka Joma’s impact on the people’s struggle in her own country, Pakistan, and how Ka Joma’s dialectical analysis of events has helped her and comrades in seeing the bright prospects not only for the people’s struggle in her native country but the peoples’ struggles around the world during times when reaction seemed to reign supreme. Angel spoke of the writings by Ka Joma that she and her fellow activists read to guide their work in building a militant and anti-imperialist women’s organization in the United States, and how learning about the Filipino people’s revolutionary movement through Ka Joma’s works inspired her to learn more by visiting the country herself.
Aside from honoring Ka Joma’s life and works, the event was also the occasion to introduce the project of the JMS Legacy Foundation. Dan Borjal, Executive Director designate, explained the main mission of the Foundation: to preserve and continue Ka Joma’s revolutionary legacy by acting as a resource center for providing Ka Joma’s works to add to the rich arsenal of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist works from which current and future generations of revolutionaries can draw and use as weapons to bring down the enemies of the people, build a socialist future and bring about a new and better world for humankind.
The event was a fitting tribute to the great revolutionary, Ka Joma, and an auspicious beginning for the Foundation being established to share his legacy. Mabuhay, Ka Joma! Ka Joma Lives!