THE Armed Forces of the Philippines on Tuesday described as preposterous the claim by the communist National Democratic Front that the US Central Intelligence Agency is planning to kill Jose Maria Sison, the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, and to oust President Rodrigo Duterte from office.
AFP spokesman Restituto Padilla said the claim was baseless and fabricated.
“Not true at all,” Padilla said.
“This is once again a propaganda line of the left to gain sympathy and toe the anti-US line that they usually take. Again, this is a reposterous statement.”
The NDF Executive Committee claimed to have received reports from several sources in the AFP that certain military officers working with the CIA and within the circle of AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Eduardo Año were contemplating to assassinate Sison and subsequently overthrow Duterte.
The first stage of the military plot, the NDF claimed, was to send a hit squad to The Netherlands to liquidate Sison.
“There is a high probability that the hit team for assassinating Sison is already operational,” the NDF said.
The group said the assassination plot against Sison had the verbal approval of Duterte and Gen. Año before or after the proclamation of martial law nationwide.
The rationale of the assassination was to demoralize the revolutionary forces and possibly sow confusion and pandemonium among them, the NDF said.
“The head and members of the hit team are made to appear as entirely renegades or dropouts from the New People’s Army even as they are handpicked mainly from the special forces of the AFP and secondarily from the former Alex Boncayao Brigade,” the NDF said.
Sison said he was taking precautions.
“That is how much I believe in it,” Sison said. “The sources are reliable and have been reporting for some weeks already. Best antidote by the NDFP to the plot is to expose it. Of course, I believe in the statement,” Sison said.
The second stage of the plot, the NDF claimed, was a military coup against Duterte for having collaborated with the communists and the New People’s Army for decades, betraying the alliance with the US and veering towards China and Russia.
The NDF said Duterte had also played favorites with certain military and police officers, subverting the professional standards of the military and police forces, corrupting and criminalizing them in the commission of extrajudicial killings and failing to solve the problem of illegal drugs despite the crude and flagrant violations of human rights.
But the AFP rejected the NDF’s claims.
