Martyrs Of The Philippine Revolution

Highest revolutionary tribute to Ka Ella and all our people's martyrs and heroes! Fight and frustrate the counterrevolutionary war of the tyrannical US-Duterte regime and carry on the people's war to new and greater heights!

The Negros Island Regional Party Committee accords the highest revolutionary honor to Kerima Lorena "Ka Ella" Tariman and Joery Dato-on "Ka Pabling" Cocuba who died in the fascist hands of the Philippine Army's 79th Infantry Battalion in an encounter on August 20, 2021 at Brgy. Kapitan Ramon, Silay City, Negros Occidental. Ka Ella, 42, was a member of the regional Party committee on the Island and the secretary of the front Party committee in Northern Negros. Ka Pabling, 38, was a long-time peasant organizer who had just joined a unit of the Roselyn Jean Pelle Command of the the New People's Army (RJPC-NPA).

We share in the grief of the family, friends, comrades and the countless oppressed and exploited masses that our new martyrs have selflessly served in Negros and, in the case of Ka Ella, in other parts of the country. We are one in the call to turn such deep sorrow over the loss of exemplary proletarian revolutionaries into a powerful collective resolve to fight and frustrate the counterrevolutionary war of the tyrannical US-Duterte regime and carry on the people's war to new and greater heights.

The news of Ka Ella's death immediately prompted her closest colleague's and various other quarters to offer their thoughts in remembrance of her invaluable contributions to the student movement, cultural work, human rights defence and struggle for genuine land reform. This has highlighted Ka Ella's personal journey and noteworthy achievements as artist and activist, poet and patriot.

More importantly, this has also brought to the fore, in no uncertain terms, the justness and necessity of armed revolution, the path towards which appears to be getting wider each day in the midst of tyranny and crisis, and also on account of the profound inspiration and courage that could be drawn from Ka Ella's supreme sacrifice and those of other revolutionary martyrs.

Three years ago, Ka Ella brought with her to Negros not only an unwavering commitment to take part in the people's war on the Island but also an already rich accumulation of revolutionary practice with the New People's Army from her earlier assignments in other regions.

In 2003, shortly after giving birth to her son, Ka Ella joined the National Cultural Bureau's armed cultural squad that was attached at different times to various guerrilla platoons in the Bicol Region. She played a crucial role in the successful breakthroughs of the said unit in integrating cultural work in mass base building, agrarian revolution and armed struggle in the guerrilla zones of Sorsogon, Catanduanes and Masbate.

Ka Ella was the chief writer of the cultural training modules of the Artista at Manunulat ng Sambayanan (ARMAS-NDFP) which are now standards in both the countryside and the cities. She was also part of the editorial team of the 2005 Ulos, the cultural journal of the national democratic movement, which featured the works of Red fighters and peasant mass activists of Bicol that participated in the literary workshops that Ka Ella herself facilitated.

There were two instances during this period when Ka Ella had to leave the guerrilla zone to recover from successive miscarriages. Yet even in such state of physical and emotional distress, she didn't allow herself to idle away her time and be detached from any practical or theoretical revolutionary activity. In these brief intervals she volunteered to curate a couple of Ulos issues, mobilizing in the process a number of artist friends and allies for translation or illustration work. She also wrote several cultural reviews while following a strict reading regimen of the Marxist classics.

In 2007 Ka Ella took on a more comprehensive duty and direct territorial responsibility when she was assigned to a guerrilla front in Camarines Sur. There she took the helm of a guerrilla platoon as its political instructor. A recent statement by the East Camarines Sur's Tomas Pilapil Command in honor of Ka Ella, or Ka Akira and Ka Kyla as she was known in those parts, attests to her tireless and thorough efforts at social investigation, mass and Party education, mass base expansion and consolidation, anti-feudal campaigns, as well as military work, the fruits of which the people and revolutionary forces in the Partido areas and the Caramoan Peninsula continue to reap up to this day.

Ka Ella found herself several times in the thick of armed battles with fascist enemy troops in Bicol. In all these, she was always brave and alert. She was always the first one to tell the comrades not to panic or to rouse them from demoralization. She personally attended to the wounded and made sure that basic guerrilla items that were left behind like clothes and hammocks were immediately replenished.

Already way past her teens when she was deployed to Camarines Sur, Ka Ella, because of her petite frame and youngish features, was nonetheless fondly referred to by the masses as the intelligent nene who carried an armalite and chewed betel. Chewing betel, she found out, was one of the easiest ways to start a conversation with the barrio folk whom she genuinely cherished as her teachers, and who loved her in return for exemplifying, in her own simple ways, the essence of being one of the best daughters of the people. On many occasions she became mother, too, to barefoot children of poor peasants, even as she constantly had to overcome the pain of being away from her own child.

In 2010 Ka Ella transferred to the Eastern Visayas. As Ka Conching, she served as deputy secretary of the main front of the Arnulfo Ortiz Command in Western Samar.

She was vocal of her appreciation of the theoretical fluency of the revolutionary forces, organized masses and children of comrades in Samar which she found quite high and humbling. Ka Ella particularly admired the region's KPA or Kurso Para sa mga Aktibista, an all-in-one manual for revolutionaries which she said every guerrilla front in the country should have.

She was likewise very open about her views on the need to decisively combat conservatism in military work and mass base building. Ka Ella was one among those who proposed that the guerrilla front resolve to establish Red political power in the middle terrains and coasts in order to reach a greater number of peasant communities and to have a wider space for maneuver.

Her stint in Samar was, however, cut short when her husband was captured by the military in 2011. This forced her to go back to Metro Manila to better supervise the campaign for his release which, thanks largely to her relentless endeavours, gained broad national and international support and eventually compelled the Department of Justice in 2013 to dismiss his case.

Returning to the guerrilla zone in 2018, this time in the country's hacienda capital, Ka Ella set out to quickly readjust herself physically and mentally to the rigors of armed revolutionary life. That she was able to master both Hiligaynon and Cebuano in so short a time was proof not so much of her unique sense of language but of her sheer determination to fully and effectively perform her new tasks.

As a regional cadre, Ka Ella actively took part in the formulation of the current five year program of the Party in Negros. She participated in the summing up of the last twenty-five years of revolutionary experience on the Island which enriched her understanding of the region and where she was generous in sharing her insights.

Ka Ella contributed a vital segment to the updated regional social investigation and class analysis (SICA) document, particularly on the history of the hacienda system in Negros and its present operation. She wrote a detailed primer on the current situation of sugar farm workers and mill workers on which the regional antifeudal campaign plan of 2020 was based.

As secretary of the front Party committee in Northern Negros, Ka Ella worked closely with responsible cadres and Red fighters in rectifying tendencies of conservatism and empiricism in various aspects of political and military work amid the brutal implementation of Memorandum Order 32 and Executive Order 70 on the Island.

The front was able to expand to other areas to deny the AFP of effective focus while still maintaining political guidance among the revolutionary masses in highly militarized communities. Collective food production and medical missions were organized in response to the COVID 19 pandemic in Northern Negros. The RJPC also heeded the people's demand to punish the operators of destructive large-scale quarrying.

The RJPC, in a eulogy, expressed its gratitude to Ka Ella for consistently striving to share her knowledge to her comrades and the masses while humbly learning from them as well. She inspired them to persevere and be competent in their duties. She was pivotal in revitalizing revolutionary propaganda and education in Northern Negros.

Even before Ka Ella's death, fascist 303rd and 302nd brigades had long been bragging that the Northern and Southeast Negros fronts had already been reduced to insignificance. Now they delude themselves further with the belief that the Northern Negros front had finally been dismantled with the passing away of its leader. While Ka Ella's death certainly amount to a great loss, many more cadres and revolutionary forces including those whom Ka Ella herself had helped develop, are all willing and capable to collectively lead the people's army and the masses in fighting and frustrating the brutal counterrevolutionary campaign of the fascist armed forces in Northern Negros.

As of this writing, Ka Pabling's family has yet to claim his remains for fear of what the fascist Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) might do to them. Meanwhile, there is reason to believe that Ka Ella was an hors de combat (a combatant who was no longer in a position to fight) when the 79th IB found her. The fascist military troops either left her to bleed to death or just finished her off.

There is no other way of seeking justice at this time for Ka Ella and Ka Pabling's death, no higher tribute to their martyrdom, than to persevere in intensive and extensive guerrilla warfare based on an ever widening and deepening mass base. The revolutionary movement in Negros must launch greater resistance to heightened oppression and exploitation on the Island as the tyrannical Duterte regime's end is fast approaching. The fascist AFP must be punished for all violations of human rights and utter disregard of international humanitarian law and protocols of war.

We call on the finest sons and daughters of the people to emulate Ka Ella's conviction of serving the people and the revolution. Join the New People's Army and take part in advancing the people's war to new and greater heights.

Long live the martyrs and heroes of the people's democratic revolution!

Take Ka Ella and Ka Pabling's place and carry forward the people's war!

Join the New People's Army!

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the National Operational Command of the New People's Army (NPA) pay the highest tribute and give the firmest Red salute to Ka Oris (Comrade Jorge Madlos), erstwhile spokesperson of the NPA. Ka Oris, together with his medical aide, Ka Pika, were murdered in cold-blood on October 29, 2021 as they were en route for his regular health checkup and to seek medical treatment. Ka Oris was 74 years old.

The entire Party, all revolutionary forces and friends of the revolutionary movement are deeply saddened by the death of Ka Oris. The Party, the New People's Army and the entire revolutionary movement lost an important cadre and leader. But the enemy has nothing to celebrate with his murder. Long before he was killed, Ka Oris had already inspired, trained and developed thousands of successors. His martyrdom further inspires the current generation and further generations to continue the people's democratic revolution through protracted people's war.

The Central Committee extends its deepest sympathies to Ka Maria Malaya, wife of Ka Oris, their children, as well as to his and Ka Pika's family and friends. The Filipino people are deeply saddened by their deaths. The broad masses, especially the countless peasants and Lumad people whom Ka Oris personally encountered in more than five decades of revolutionary service, feel a deep sense of loss with Ka Oris' death, but at the same time, are enraged over how he was killed by the cowardly and dishonorable fascists.

We condemn in the strongest terms the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), particularly the 4th Infantry Division, for carrying out the murder of Ka Oris and Ka Pika and the subsequent lies propagated by military officers to cover up their crime. Ka Oris and his aide were aboard a motorcycle and traversing the road from the center of Impasug-ong town in Bukidnon province going to the national highway when they were ambushed by soldiers belonging to the 403rd Infantry Brigade.

The AFP could easily have arrested them as both were unarmed and were in no position to give battle. Instead, the fascists finished them off with bullets in a shameless demonstration of their cowardice. There is absolutely no honor in murdering a defenseless enemy. The claim that Ka Oris was killed in an armed encounter with an NPA unit is a gargantuan lie propped up by a multimillion aerial bombardment in a nearby mountain staged to create the impression of an intense battle.

We are aware that the plot to kill Ka Oris was personally directed by the tyrant himself. Without a doubt, the final order to kill Ka Oris was issued by none other than Rodrigo Duterte. Duterte is obsessed with murdering the leaders of the Party and the NPA on the mistaken belief that he could end the revolution by killing its leaders. On the contrary, Ka Oris' blood will further nourish the ground from which patriots, democrats and revolutionaries sprout and take root.

Ka Oris died a hero's death, murdered by the fascists while fighting for the cause of national and social liberation. To his last breath, Ka Oris was a true communist cadre and fighter. For more than five decades, he devoted his life wholly and unwaveringly to the cause of all the oppressed and exploited people to free them from the yoke of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism.

As a young student activist in the early 1970s, he was driven by the cause of democracy and social action, working to uplift the people from poverty and hunger. He helped organize his fellow students in the Central Mindanao University Musuan Campus in Maramag, Bukidnon. He was on his fifth year as a student of agricultural engineering when martial law was declared in 1972 which crystallized his decision to join the armed revolution.

He joined the New People's Army as a young man and belonged to one of the first squads of Red fighters who broke ground in Mindanao, particularly in Northern Mindanao. He played an important role in the growth of the NPA through the 1970s and 1980s. From a few squads, the NPA grew to several companies as they carried out mass work, military work and waging antifeudal struggles. The NPA fought for the interests of the peasant masses and Lumad people (ethnic minorities) and defended themselves against the armed agents of the state and big capitalist logging and mining companies and plantations which grabbed farms and ancestral land.

Ka Oris put into practice the Party's line of people's democratic revolution through protracted people's war and saw for himself its correctness. The Party and NPA took deep and wide roots in the countryside. Myriad forms of revolutionary mass organizations sprouted and served as foundation for establishing organs of political power which governed and administered the economic, political, educational, cultural and military affairs at the village level and up. Despite the threats of fascist repression, thousands upon thousands joined the Party to help lead the people's war.

Ka Oris was captured in 1987 after the collapse of peace talks with the Corazon Aquino government. He was imprisoned for five years. During this time, the NPA in Mindanao saw the height of errors of premature regularization and insurrectionism during which Red fighters of the NPA were overly concentrated in battalions disproportionate to its horizontal spread and to the detriment of sustaining and expanding the mass base. Ultimately, mass support contracted and proved insufficient for sustaining the military victories during the latter part of the 1980s until 1990.

Ka Oris served as one of the strongest pillars of the Second Great Rectification Movement which the Central Committee declared in 1992 to reaffirm the Party's basic Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideological principles and its strategic line of people's democratic revolution through protracted people's war. He stood firm against the revisionists and "Left" opportunists among whom were former cadres in the Mindanao Commission who eventually turned traitors to the revolutionary cause. He would always say that it was not the enemy which almost decimated the NPA in Mindanao in the 1980s and early 1990s, but the NPA's own weaknesses and bad decisions.

Over the course of the past two decades, Ka Oris and other comrades led the Party, NPA and revolutionary forces in Northeast Mindanao region. The people's war would rage across the five regions in Mindanao island as the NPA carried out the line of intensive and extensive guerrilla warfare on the basis of an ever widening and deepening mass base.

In 2015, he was appointed to serve as one of the leading commanders of the National Operational Command of the NPA in recognition of the advanced experience of waging people's war in the island. In 2016, Ka Oris played an important role in bringing together around one hundred cadres from all regional Party committees across the Philippines to convene the historic 2nd Congress of the CPP. During the congress, Ka Oris was elected as a member of the Central Committee, the Political Bureau and the Executive Committee, and was tasked to be among the leading cadres in the Military Commission and the Mindanao Commission. He was also assigned as a consultant of the NDFP in peace negotiations.

As a Party leader, Ka Oris studied and firmly applied Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. He would spend time reading and rereading classic military writings especially those of such great communist leaders as Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap. He meticulously studied the history and successful experiences of waging people's war in semicolonial and semifeudal countries. He was always inspired by the epic struggles of the oppressed and exploited classes throughout history.

He devoted time and effort to training the young cadres and Red fighters in the art and science of guerrilla warfare. He wrote manuals and training courses for officers and men of the NPA enriched by the past and new experiences in waging guerrilla warfare. He made it a point to gather Party cadres in big and small meetings, consultations and conferences where he intently listened, discussed and debated with comrades. He trekked long distances from one guerrilla front to another, to observe first hand the work of Party committees and NPA units. Over the past years, he took risks to go around the archipelago to inspire and impart his knowledge of waging people's war. He always said that to be able to gather cadres and assess their revolutionary work amid intense military operations is a feat in itself.

Ka Oris was a staunch defender of the environment. One of the first demonstrations he organized as an activist was a protest action against a logging company. For several decades, he led units of the NPA who fought against big bourgeois comprador companies which ravaged the environment. He took it a point to issue a statement every year during Earth Day especially amid the worsening environmental crisis brought about by capitalist anarchy in production and its destructive effect and impact on global ecology. He defended the NPA's actions to render useless the machines and tools with which logging and mining companies exploit and destroy the land and the people.

Ka Oris had always played a publicly prominent role. He was assigned as one of the representatives of the National Democratic Front (NDF)-Mindanao in peace negotiations with the Corazon Aquino government in 1986-1987. He served as spokesperson of the NDFP-Mindanao and later of the New People's Army. He took the name "Oris" from his uncle and foster father, Mauricio Ravelo, who raised him since he was 3 years old. He recalled that his first interview as Ka Oris was by a Bombo Radyo reporter in 1978.

Having served as spokesperson, Ka Oris had numerous encounters with journalists. He made a lot of friends among reporters and writers not only because he gave interviews whenever possible, but more so because he was always cordial to journalists, even to those who made known their animosity to the revolutionary cause. He ardently supported the struggle for press freedom. Through his efforts, not a few journalists saw how different the revolutionary movement was from the image of "terrorists" persistently being painted by the real terrorists—the fascist reactionaries. He engaged journalists in discussions with the aim of reaching out to the public and clarifying the views of the revolutionary movement. Reporters who had the opportunity to join the press conferences organized by Ka Oris would attest to both his charisma and humility.

Indeed, despite his public and organizational stature, Ka Oris remained a humble revolutionary who shunned the easy life and chose the difficult and arduous life of a Party cadre and guerrilla fighter. He was able to manage his condition of having a permanently damaged urinary bladder (which resulted from an untreated infection in prison) by maintaining a meticulously clean and spartan lifestyle. He laughed at repeated claims of the military that he was sick and ailing. He remained generally healthy and able to march for days on end even recently. Young Red fighters and revolutionaries are always inspired by Ka Oris, who despite his medical condition and advanced age, continued to take the difficult road of people's war.

Ka Oris was a quintessential family man, deeply devoted to his wife, Ka Maria Malaya, and their two children. As with many revolutionaries, they endured long stretches of separation. He had the highest respect for Ka Maria, who is a leading Party cadre herself.

He treated comrades with warm affection, especially the younger ones. He had boundless love and concern for comrades and the masses. He made it a point to ensure that everyone is well taken care of. He had a wry sense of humor making him easy to be with. Ka Oris was a comrade beloved by Red fighters, by the peasant masses, Lumads, and workers, as well as by various sectors in the cities. To many, he was a loving fatherly figure who was concerned with the comrades' big and small concerns.

The love of the broad masses of workers and peasants for Ka Oris is matched only by the hatred of big landlords, the big bourgeois compradors, the mining companies, plantations, the bureaucrat capitalists, tyrants and dictators, and the fascist terrorists who perpetuate the oppressive and exploitative system. They have used all their wealth and resources to demonize and blacken the image of Ka Oris. The cowardly and dishonorable fascists are beyond themselves in celebrating their murder of Ka Oris. They are only fooling themselves in thinking that killing Ka Oris will put an end to the revolution. As Ka Oris himself said, the revolution will continue because it is just.

By taking away his life, the fascists have succeeded only in immortalizing Ka Oris. He now lives forever in the hearts and minds of the Filipino people as one of their heroes and icons. His indomitable spirit of revolutionary resistance continues to imbue the new generation of Party cadres and young Red fighters. It will serve to inspire future generations who will carry on the fight for genuine national freedom and social liberation, land for the landless and national industrialization, and for the emancipation of people from all forms of oppression and exploitation.

Long live the memory of Ka Oris!

Bear high the torch of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism!

Advance the cause of the people's democratic revolution!

Carry forward the people's war until complete victory!

Long live the New People's Army!

Long live the Communist Party of the Philippines!

Long live the Filipino people!

Ode to Ka Parts

Beloved Artist of the People
Slain by Government Troops in Polomolok, South Cotabato,
on the 16th of August 2021
With only pen and ink to defend himself

We never knew a man so deeply faithful
to his art
as he was to the revolution.
From his hands things came alive
As he captured them on paper, on sand, on petals,
On our very skin — an honest record of the
moveable life we live and
of our boundless responsibilities.
You sketched us — imperfect and perfect
And we came to see things as they were,
Or as they could be — rifles, nipa huts, seedlings,
Feet steeled in the long walk,
Warriors and comrades,
The warm smile of peasants,
Eyes that glint with love and hope,
All things still and moving and
The inexhaustible image of this —
This great guerilla war so we could
Erase all wars and build
The latent goodness and
Compassion of this world.

We never knew a man so intensely faithful
to the revolution,
as he was to his art.
And there he was, seated on a stone,
Or patiently poised in an attack
Against the marauders of the land
Translating action into paper —
Sketching the world as he understood it
Never stopping, never flinching.
And from his art we learned the texture of things,
The intertwining roots of the mountains,
The narratives of our commitment.
It was the most beautiful painting yet,
The anatomy of this great undertaking —
Perfect cadence of warriors and peasants
in a communion of dreams.

Parts, dearest Parts —
Beloved artist and devoted son of the People's War,
The enemy's bullet can never erase you
It cannot delete the vision you've lived for
So dearly etched in our lives
Framed in our hearts, and
In the veins and arteries of our struggle.

You live, you will always live, Ka Parts.

With all the love and respect,
Ka Joven Obrero