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Manila: The founder of the 39-year old Communist Party of the Philippines (CCP), a communist peace negotiator, and a leftist congressman will be tried in Manila's lower court for allegedly ordering the summary execution of comrades who were suspected as military spies, in central Philippines in the 1980s.
The multiple murder case filed against CCP Chairman Jose Maria Sison, National Democratic Front (NDF) negotiating panel chairman Luis Jalondoni, and Congressman Satur Ocampo of the militant Nation First, was assigned to Judge Thelma Bunyi-Medina of the Manila Trial Court, the clerk of court said.
Congressman Ocampo denied the charges saying he was imprisoned by former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, when the alleged purge of suspected communist spies occurred in Inopacan, Southern Leyte in 1985.
Ocampo was arrested last year on orders of the court in central Philippines. But he posted P100,000 (Dh 8,095) bail bond for his temporary freedom. Ocampo is the only one who can appear in court for the trial.
"The government fabricated the cases filed against us," said Sison who has been living in the Netherlands after former President Corazon Aquino released him from prison in 1986.
Sison is the founding chairman of the CPP and its military arm, the New Peoples Army (NPA). Jalandoni, on the other hand, has been negotiating with the Philippine government since the start of the government-NDF peace talks in 1992. Jalandoni has been living in exile in Utrecht, the Netherlands since the early 80s.
In 2007, state prosecutors filed the case against the three leftist leaders after the military found a mass grave in Inopacan, Southern Leyte. The grave contained bodies of former NPA rebels, the military said.
The Supreme Court has ordered the regional trial court of Leyte, central Philippines where the case was first assigned, to immediately transfer the records of the case to Manila's regional trial court.
The CPP-NPA has controlled several villages in far-flung provinces nationwide. The United States and the European Union tagged Sison as a foreign terrorist in 2004.
In 1991, the Philippine Congress passed a law which decriminalised membership to the communist party. This lured the leftist leaders to the negotiating table in 1992.
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