By Mata Press Service

Jose Maria Sison, the exiled leader of the Philippines Communist party – who has strong support in Canada’s Filipino migrant worker community – has been accused of mass murder to purge his military wing of spies.

The charges come in the wake of Sison being criticized for posting pictures of himself on his Web site, singing and dancing with actress Ara Mina, who was in a revealing, low-cut dress. “I am used to false charges that come and go…These are cheaply fabricated by the Manila government,” said Sison in a statement posted on his website.

“I am not at all worried by the false charges made against me by the military and police minions of the Arroyo regime. I laugh at the charges against me,”

Sison, 66, who founded the Communist Party of the Philippines in the early 1970s, fled to the Netherlands after the collapse of peace talks in 1987.

The Dutch internal service which has been watching Sison alleges he is still the leader of rebel forces responsible for hundreds of deaths in the Philippines every year, according to news reports in Manila.

There is no extradition treaty between the Netherlands and the Philippines.

Canada joined the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands in 2002 to blacklist Sison’s group, freeze its assets and those of its affiliated organisations and labelled Sison as a ‘terrorist’. The freeze order was issued by the Canadian government on Aug. 29 and includes a prohibition on fund-raising activities or mobilization of support for the terrorist group and its armed wing the New People’s Army.

B.C.-based Filipino-Canadian groups have condemned the move to blacklist Sison in Canada describing it as a “U.S.-led witch-hunt to suppress legitimate political activities and dissent in the Philippines.

They have also held rallies outside the Dutch consulate on Howe Street in Vancouver and promoted the sale of a book about him at the Russian Hall in Burnaby.

The new murder charges against Sison and other communist party leaders involve killings in Leyte, where a mass grave was discovered by the Philippines military last year.

According to prosecutors the murders were allegedly committed during Operation “Oplan Ahos,” which purged the ranks of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) of “spies and counter-revolutionaries” from 1985 to 1991. The remains of the 15 murder victims were among 67 bodies exhumed by government investigators from so called communist “killing fields” after four former red rebels led military troops to the site.

The four witnesses allegedly claimed the killings were carried out on orders of Sison and other ranking officials of the communist movement.

Manila is currently seeking the help of Interpol to get at Sison.

Sison in a letter to supporters worldwide said: “On my part, I am not at all worried by the false charges being made against me by the military and police minions of the Arroyo regime. I laugh off all of them….

First, the charges are so patently false, malicious and politically motivated.

The Arroyo regime is trying to show off that it can put down its Filipino critics anywhere in the world. But it only succeeds in exposing its callous intolerance for my exercise of the freedom of speech and its contempt for fundamental democratic rights.”

A Sison supporter in Vancouver described the charges as a move by President Gloria Arroyo’s administration to deflect attention from the recent spate of extra-judicial killings of political activists and journalists. There is an estimated 400,000 Filipinos staying in Canada.

The recent arrest of Philippine Congressman Satur Ocampo, who is charged along side Sison has also sparked concernfrom Canadian labour unions.

Kay Sinclair, Regional Executive Vice-President of the Public Service Alliance of Canada  for B.C. said, “We need to build awareness amongst our members and other trade unionists about the grave political situation, for trade unionists and other activists, in the Philippines.”

PSAC co-sponsored a forum where around 100 people including trade unionists, members of the local Filipino-Canadian and Indigenous Filipino community, and other human rights activists and concerned Canadians attended.

Speakers included, Ted Alcuitas, member of the B.C. Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines and Jennifer Efting, Hospital Employees Union staff and Bus Riders Union organizer who both recently returned from the Canadian Fact-Finding Mission to the Philippines held in November 2006.

In 2005, Filipino workers in Canada wired home a total of C$117.06 million, up almost 74 percent versus the $67.34 million they remitted in 2004. At present, Canada receives an average of 10,000 Filipino nationals annually, making them the third-largest immigrant group in the nation. The Philippines is the most dependent nation on remittances from overseas workers due to lack of domestic fiscal capacity.

As in Canada, Filipino migrant workers around the world represent a strong force that influences the politics and economy in the Philippines.