The Communist Party of the Philippines was founded by Jose Maria Canlas Sison, better known by his stage name Joma, a Filipino author and activist who infused Maoist concepts into its philosophy, which came to be known as national democracy.

On December 16, 2022, he passed away. He used the Marxism-Leninism-Maoism theory to analyze both the historical and contemporary events in the Philippines.

His great-grandfather, Don Leandro Serrano, was the largest landowner in northern Luzon at the end of the 19th century. Both the first mayor of Cabugao under US colonial government and the final gobernadorcillo of the province under Spanish colonial rule were Don Gorgonio Soller Sison.

His great-uncle Don Marcelino Crisólogo served as Ilocos Sur’s first governor. His uncle Teófilo Sison served as Pangasinan’s governor and the Commonwealth government’s first Defense Secretary. He was convicted guilty of plotting with the Japanese occupiers in 1946, but he was later pardoned.

BREAKING! Who is Jose Maria Sison wife Julie de Lima?

Sison and Julie de Lima met while attending UP Diliman as students. They developed a close bond while attending the same study groups and got married in 1960.

The couple have four kids together. In prison, their youngest daughter was born in 1981.

Sison is Leila de Lima’s uncle through his wife Julie de Lima, who served as the secretary of the Philippine Department of Justice under President Benigno S. Aquino III and is currently a senator.