BALANCE
By Ba Ipe
CONTRARY to his claim in a recent public hearing of the Senate impeachment court, Robin Padilla, the laughingstock in that supposed august body, was, is, and would never be a communist. Everything was hot air in his claim that he is a communist.
Even the late Jose Ma. Sison, founder of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) its military arm, the New People’s Army (NPA), and political arm, the communist-lead National Democratic Front (NDF), would laugh off from his grave because Robin does not deserve to be called a communist.
The ex-convict claim of being a communist started when Robin went to Utrecht, Netherlands in 2017 purportedly to act as an “intermediary” in the stalled peace talks between the government of the Philippines (GRP) and the CPP-NPA-NDF. Then President Rodrigo Duterte purportedly sent him to explore the possibility to continue the stalled peace negotiations, which Duterte’s predecessor Benigno Aquino III was never serious to pursue. At that time, Duterte was in a sort of honeymoon with the Left as indicated by the appointment of certain left-wing elements in his government.
Moreover, PNoy’s predecessor, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, discontinued the peace talks because they failed to gain headway although Finland volunteered Oslo to be the venue for their continuation. The abrupt termination put the peace talks at the backburner for nearly a decade until Duterte explored the possibility to resurrect it purportedly as a deal to get the Left’s support in his presidential run in 2016.
He sent Robin as his emissary although Duterte never designated Robin as an official negotiator. It is debatable if Duterte was ever serious to continue the peace talks, which the military faction in his coalition vehemently opposed.
It was supposed to be a backchanneling operation that never had any official character. But Robin was a noisy guy and his meeting with Sison leaked to the nosy media.
Sison met Robin for what appeared to be some freewheeling discussions that never resulted in anything serious and substantial. Duterte and Sison were acquaintances from their days at the Lyceum University of the Philippines in the 1960s.
Sison taught there, even he was busy leading the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), the youth organization he founded, and working as a cadre of the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP), the forerunner of the CPP.
Duterte took his undergraduate studies at Lyceum before he went to San Beda University to take up law. Duterte claimed he met Sison in Lyceum and admitted he was attracted to what Sison advocated during those days.
What Sison and Robin discussed at Utrecht was not publicly disclosed. It was said that Sison, hopeful for the continuation of the stalled peace talks, welcomed Robin with open arms since their meeting had Duterte’s blessings. But Sison clarified that Robin did not go to Utrecht as a cadre of the CPP-NPA-NDF despite his claim of being “a former activist” himself.
Sison appeared to have not taken Robin seriously because he knew the movie actor tended to have an exaggerated estimate of himself. It could be said that he went with the flow because of his intense desire to have a political settlement of the two contending forces – GRP and CPP-NPA-NDF.
In 2025, Padilla claimed he is a “socialist,” without clarifying much on what he meant by that word. Robin, as a senator, claimed that he carries socialist ideals in his legislative works. A media report said Robin was identified as a mere Duterte ally, who was open with the Left as indicated by his 2017 meeting with Sison in Utrecht.
It was only in the 2026 impeachment trial that he called himself a “communist” without explaining much of what he meant. Critics said it is doubtful if Robin knows and understands the tenets of communism like Karl Marx’s dialectical materialism and theory of labor value.
Sison expounded in his writings what it means to be a communist cadre – strict discipline, mass work, policy of criticism and self-criticism. For sure, the party discipline would not augur well to Robin’s lifestyle, which is described to be “loose and amoral” because of his background as a movie actor.
There is no truth to Robin’s claim that he is a communist. It was all hot air.
