The former university professor died in the Netherlands, where he had lived since going into voluntary exile in 1987.
The Communist Party writes in a statement that Sison died in a hospital in Utrecht where he had been treated for the past two weeks.
“The proletarians and struggling people of the Philippines mourn the passing of their teacher and guiding light,” the party writes.
In the 1970s, José Maria Sison was the leader of the CCP, the Communist Party of the Philippines, but was arrested and imprisoned by the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship in 1977. Nine years later, Sison was released and went to Europe, where he sought and received political asylum in the Netherlands.
From 1990, he was a consultant to the NPF, an umbrella organization of various leftist groups that includes the CCP and its armed wing the NPA, in its peace negotiations with the government.
In August 2007, he was arrested on charges of ordering the murders of two Filipino politicians and the attempted murders of two others. Two weeks later, he was released by a court after the evidence was found to be insufficient. However, the prosecutors were allowed to continue their review.
In 2009, the prosecutors announced that they had closed the investigation against José Maria Sison.