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As I write this, scores of supporters of Jose Maria Sison are assembling in Manila for a "victory march and rally" to celebrate the leftist leader's release from prison after Dutch judges found the evidence him "insufficient" to cause his continued detention.

There it is -- (1) after all the exaltation and credit-grabbing over Sison's arrest, (2) after speaking as if they gave the goods, (3) after proclaiming for the nth time the impending doom of the movement Sison founded in 1964, (4) after spreading rumors of New People's Army regulars supposedly fleeing camps nationwide due to demoralization, and (5) after foisting war or fake amnesty on NPA -- the plot to pin down Sison failed.

Norberto Manero, er, Gonzales was surprised to receive the news last night. Actually, he was shamed by the news. His "kuryente" stories -- all the fake, manufactured, concocted cases against the Left -- starting with the "killing fields" in Bukidnon, the omnibus rebellion case, the arrest and detention of Satur Ocampo, and the ongoing legal campaign to file cases across the country against both legal and underground leftists -- have all miserably failed. The Sison case is his latest and hopefully the last "kuryente" story.

This time, Gonzales' kuryente reached the Dutch courts who yesterday discovered the lie about "compelling and strong evidence" of Sison's "crimes against humanity", and caused the most decent and just thing to happen -- to release Sison.

Gonzales, the military and police and President Arroyo have gone around town proclaiming the guilt of Sison -- only to be rebuffed big time by the Dutch court they thought will play footsie with them. Sa likod ng sobrang kayabangan, wala naman pala silang ebidensya.

The pundits and bloggers who worship these demigods are of course silent. Pahiya eh. They won't even acknowledge the fact that they were wrong. Their brains are too fucked up with irrational and mindless anti-communism to understand fairplay and due process even for communists, socialists and national democrats.

The liberal papers which played up Sison's arrest with banner stories did not even bother to give Sison a commensurate treatment on his release. Talk about fairness. Ok lang i-headline ang komunista basta inaaresto o kinukulong sila.

And so movements inspired by Sison are set to march moments later in Manila, proclaiming the good news of Sison's release and the major setback given to the Philippine government which persecutes him no end.

Sison remains a suspect and the "case" has not been dismissed -- and so we must

And so we continue to defend Sison not because we are part of a cult, but because the intolerance of the state for the likes of Sison -- to the extent that the state invents false charges against him and charges him on foreign soil -- is a danger to free expression, free speech, free thought and free assembly. If they can do this to Sison and to other leftists, they can do it to anyone.

And so we continue to champion Sison's cause because despite the ongoing, triumphalist march of world capitalism and local semifeudalism, there remains a glimmer of hope offered in the movement for national democracy and socialism which Sison started some four decades ago in the face of its slanderers' failure to provide the Filipino people prosperity and peace.

Video link courtesy of GMANews.tv