Prof. Jose Maria Sison is a Filipino patriot, a proletarian revolutionary and internationalist. He is a Filipino statesman, known for his experience in and knowledge of the people's democratic government and revolutionary forces in the Philippines. He is sometimes consulted by high officials of foreign governments and by presidents, senators, congressmen and local officials of the Philippine reactionary government concerning peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and related matters. He is recognized as the leader of the Filipino people's movement for national liberation and democracy in the last 50 years. The celebration of this coincides with that of the 40th anniversaries of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People's Army (NPA). After the destruction of the armed revolutionary movement in the early 1950s in the Philippines, he was chiefly responsible for the resurgence of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal mass movement in the Philippines since 1959. He was the founding Chairman of the Central Committee of the CPP, 1968-77. He is one of the world's leading authorities on the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism and Maoism, on revolutionary movements in Asia and on the international communist movement. He has been a recognized poet since 1962 and awardee of the Southeast Asia WRITE Award for poetry, 1986.