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CPP declares 10 days of mourning for Joma Sison

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The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) called on its members and supporters to dedicate their upcoming 54th anniversary celebrations to the memory of its founding chairperson Jose Maria Sison who died last Friday in The Netherlands.

In a statement, the CPP’s Central Committee said it will dedicate its anniversary celebrations to their leader’s memory, “to celebrate his life and all the victories that we have achieved under his leadership and guidance.”

The CPP also declared the 10 days since Sison’s passing to their founding anniversary on December 26 as a period of mourning for the entire Party in order to give the “highest possible tribute” to him.

In a statement Saturday, the CPP declared Sison as the “greatest hero of the Filipino people in their past century of resistance against imperialism.”

“His immense contributions to shaping the patriotic and revolutionary consciousness of the Filipino people and breaking open the path towards national and social liberation will never be erased,” the group said.

The revolutionary party likewise ordered all units of the New People’s Army (NPA) to stand in formation at the break of dawn of December 26 and silently perform a 21-gun salute for Sison, “by way of giving the highest tribute and bidding farewell to our beloved leader.”

The group added that the NPA can stage tactical offensives against the military as part of the celebrations.

The CPP announced Sison’s death last Saturday, saying the 83-year old founding chairperson had been confined in a Dutch hospital before his passing.

‘Highest possible tribute’

The revolutionary group said it grieves the loss of a great leader who masterfully and creatively applied Marxism-Leninism-Maoism in launching and leading the national democratic revolution in the Philippines, one of the oldest armed revolutions in the world.

Sison gave the Filipino people the strength to carve the country’s future and attain their aspirations for national freedom and democracy, it added.

“The Central Committee and the entire Party will forever be guided and inspired by Ka Joma’s immortal revolutionary spirit,” it said.

An English professor in various Philippine universities and a labor union organizer before leading the re-establishment of the CPP in 1968, Sison authored more than 30 volumes of essays and poetry the CPP describes as a “rich and deep Marxist-Leninist-Maoist treasure trove.”

He was awarded the South East Asia WRITE Award for his poetry in 1986.

Under the name Amado Guerrero, Sison authored Philippine Society and Revolution that generations of Filipino activists and revolutionaries regard as one the greatest Filipino books ever written.

“We affirm as well the important role that Ka Joma played as a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist torch bearer who helped inspire the proletariat across the world and keep the embers of the international communist movement as it enters a new phase of resurgence,” the CPP said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

NDF-Negros: Military murdered peace consultant-poet Ericson Acosta

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Award winning poet and National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Ericson Acosta was murdered by the military Wednesday morning in Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental, a rebel spokesperson announced.

NDF-Negros spokesperson Bayani Obrero said in a statement that Acosta and a companion were captured alive at around two o’clock in the morning of November 30 but were announced as casualties in a “fake encounter” a few hours later.

Obrero belied the announcement made by the 94th Infantry Battalion (IB) of the Philippine Army (PA) that the bodies of two New People’s Army (NPA) members were “found” at the site of a second firefight between government troopers and the revolutionary group in Sitio Makilo, Barangay Camansi in the said city.

In an earlier announcement, the government unit said that they, along with the 47th IB-PA, fought against 10 NPA fighters twice in a span of 15 minutes that resulted in the discovery of two dead rebels, presumably Acosta and his unnamed companion.

The government troopers said the insurgents were earlier involved in a series of gunfights in Carabalan, Himamaylan City in October.

The NDF in Negros however said Acosta and companion were summarily executed as part of the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ “despicable policy of taking no prisoners in their counter-insurgency campaign.”

“Twisting truths cannot cover the fact that butchers 94th Infantry Battalion and 47th Infantry Battalion captured NDF Consultant Ericson Acosta and his companion, a peasant organizer, alive around 2:00 this morning,“ Obrero said.

Obrero said Acosta was in southern Negros to consult on the situation of farm workers as one of the NDFP peace consultants working on social and economic reforms.

Acosta attended the formal peace negotiations between the NDFP and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines in 2017 in Italy and The Netherlands.

Acosta, first arrested in February 2011 in Samar Island, regained freedom two years later.

A highly-regarded writer, singer and actor, he later won a National Book Award for his first poetry collection “Mula Tarima Hanggang at iba pang mga Tula at Awit” published by the University of the Philippines Press in 2015.

He was a former culture editor of The Philippine Collegian.

He is survived by a son with fellow poet, actor and campus journalist Lorena Kerima Tariman who was similarly killed in what the military described as an “encounter” in Silay City, Negros Occidental in October 2021. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

MonRam, 1944-2021

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March 29

Reply to a Comrade

By Engr. Ramon P. Ramirez (+)

Last night we had a talk
 in a bus filled with people
   on their way home.
I talked about the moon
   sailing silently on a cloudless sky.
And you talked about the trees
   on the plaza we passed by.

It is the same moon
 which shone upon Chingkangshan
   and the Red base at Yenan.
It is the same moon
 which brightened up the streets of Peking
   on the first day of October
     in nineteen-hundred and forty-nine.

Who knows that today
   the same moon showers its glow
     upon our comrades in the countryside
       lighting their way up dangerous mountain trails.

The trees we saw are much the same
   as those that shelter our comrades
     from the sun and rain and reconnaissance planes.

Moon and trees
   though thousands of miles apart
     become our allies in the people’s war —
Like Wu Kang, too, who will serve us
   his cassia-flower brew.

Many years from now
   we shall talk about the moon moving triumphantly
     across a red sky;
   we shall talk about the trees swaying
     amidst red banners on the plaza we shall pass by.

We shall talk of things
   that will stir our hearts
     and widen our visions;
       and of men becoming god.
Perhaps still in a bus full of people
   happily on their way home
     to the communes.

(Written by the poet in 1976.)

ENJAMBMENT FOR COMRADE MONRAM

By Raymund B. Villanueva

Unlike the moon you wrote about, I did

not know you were a secret poet

crafting paeans about the silent and glowing

orb across cloudless night skies

and shadow-throwing trees giving shelter

to comrades trekking dangerous mountain trails.

Didn’t you know we thought you were like

that moon, with your white hair radiant as your smile

there, gleaming at the corners of our viewfinders

and flitting across our fields of vision

among the pulsating throng.

We heard you talk of dreams and triumphs–

wistfully of the region of the oragon and magayon

whence you sprung, lovingly of the bloodline you belonged,

proudly of the brotherhood you loved, ever hopeful

of the revolution you embraced.

They, all, glowed fulsome in your heart.

We shared a ride when we saw each other last.

The road was twisty and the sky was dark.

But, like that one moonlit March night long ago,

you spoke of plazas with swaying red flags.

I now know, Comrade MonRam,

it was the moon I drove home that night

to his other great love, home to his bride.

–9:57 a.m.
4 August 2021
Quezon City

BINHI NG TULA

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(Alay kay Kerima Lorena Tariman)

Supling ng mga magulang na kapwa manunulat
Kanyang pangala’y mga tila pamagat
Kerimang mahusay at mapagbigay *
Lorenang kapita-pitaganang tagumpay **

Sa kamusmusa’y aklat ang kapiling
Bitamina niya’t ehersisyo’y panimdim
Pag-unawa, ‘di kasanayan, ang tamo
Hindi talinghaga ang birtud ng berso

Nagbagong-taong may layon ang wika
Punglong walang patid sa inangking digma
Iwinaksi ang aspalto’t sa lupa nag-yapak
Doon, doon kung saan may layong tiyak

Ang balita kahapo’y kagila-gilalas
‘Sang hiningang maluwalhating napigtas
Buhay na tapat sa hangaring lumaya
Kamataya’y makapangyarihang tula

Kamatayang nagsisilang ng marami pang tula.

-Raymund B Villanueva
   9:31 n.u.
22 Agosto 2021
   Lungsod Quezon
*, **:Mga na-google na kahulugan ng pangalang Kerima at Lorena

MAYAMOR*

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By Tomas Talledo

 

You write poetry but who reads?

They who sends SMS “I luv U ga…mwah”?

They who sit at coffee shops blubbering inanities?

They who sex at the age of fourteen?

 

They’re Plato’s ilks who’ll banish poetry in our people’s republic.

 

You vividly paint the revolution but who stops to see?

The eyeless agents wobbling in graveyard shifts?

The dyslexiacs lost in labyrinth of wikipedia?

The somnambulists in flat cyberscreen?

 

They’re shards of broken mirror who can’t reflect the whole.

 

Still, you write and paint and sing of the coming wise-dom

Of enchanted forests, waterfalls and nourishing rain

Of communal dagsaw, drums and armalites

Of Tumandok people’s protracted war.

 

While we bury our eyes, guts and hearts at comfort zones of indifference.

 

Still, you write and paint and sing of communism

Of food, learning and spirited actions

Of binanog dances, healing and cultivation

that will surface in headwaters of Panay.

 

*A highest salute to painter-poet and companion martyrs in Antique

 

NDF-Panay on Antique 7: ‘Proudest to acknowledge and claim them’

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“We boast of them as among the best sons and daughters of our motherland.”–Concha Araneta

 

THE National Democratic Front in Panay (NDF-Panay) acknowledged that the seven killed in San Jose, Antique Wednesday, August 15, were their own who were “veterans and responsible cadres of the [Communist Party of the Philippines] and the revolution.”

In a statement issued a few hours after news of the massacre broke out, NDF-Panay spokesperson Concha Araneta said five of those mowed down by the military were “comrades full of ability, talent, intelligence and [were] most assiduous.”

Araneta said Felix Salditos alias Ka Dudi, Eldie Labinghisa alias Ka Elton, Karen Ceralvo alias Ka Liway, and Liezl Nadiola alias Ka Mayang were members of the CPP’s education and propaganda staff in the island who were in Antique to investigate people’s complaints.

Araneta said among the problems brought forward by the people in the province included demolition of urban poor houses, concerns of poor and small fisherfolks, the poverty of workers and sacadas, soaring prices of commodities and expenditures, among others.

She added that the two others, Jason Talibo alias Ka Bebe and Jason Sanchez, provided technical services in order to facilitate their research and study of the conditions of the most backward province in Panay.

“(U)nlike the fascist troops who conceal their casualties, we are proudest to acknowledge and claim Ka Dudi, Ipoy, Elton, Liway, Mayang, Bebe and Jason. We boast of them as among the best sons and daughters of our motherland,” Araneta said.

Araneta said the martyrs gave the ripest and most productive years of their lives to the utmost service to the people and for the advancement of the revolutionary struggle in Panay.

The seven were killed after midnight of August 15 in Barangay Atabay in what the San Jose police and the Philippine Army’s 301st Infantry Brigade Intelligence Task Group said was a 30-minute firefight.

No encounter

NDF-Panay, however, said the incident was a brutal massacre, planned and executed by the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Army.

Araneta said the seven victims were all asleep and unarmed, contrary to claims by the raiding team that a grenade, a .38 revolver, one KG-9, an M203 grenade were found at the scene that could hardly sustain a 30-minute clash if there was indeed a firefight.

She also questioned the police claim that the raiding team went to the area to serve warrants of arrest against two of the victims.

“If their intention was to serve the warrant, why execute it in the middle of the night, under cover of darkness? And to think that (they) had a hundred men deployed just to capture two personalities,” Araneta said.

Araneta also belied that the victims were members of the NPA’s taxation team or were planning to raid the San Jose police station.

Families of the victims in a press conference in Iloilo Thursday described some of them as writers, with Salditos cited as a notable painter and writer.

Maya Daniel’s last poem, posted a few minutes after they were killed by raiding police and military in San Jose, Antique.

Red poet

Sources told Kodao that Salditos was the poet and visual artist Maya Daniel.

Tributes to Daniel’s poetry in his Facebook account quickly poured, hailing him as an inspiration and thanking him for his sacrifice.

Daniel’s last update a few minutes before their deaths read, “Just posted 17 poems and visuals…Feel free to share, friends. Goodnight!”

Araneta said their martrys were smart and diligent comrades who shared their learning and knowledge to the younger generation of revolutionaries.

“They gave color, music, energy and life to revolutionary propaganda and culture for the exploited and oppressed, for genuine freedom, justice and peace,” she said. # (Raymund B. Villanueva)

Tugon sa pamanang hamon

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Alay kay Maya Daniel ng Antique 7

 

“we stand undaunted/to dark clouds/we fight and we get up/to see our bright day!”—Verse, Maya Daniel

 

Namamatay ang daigdig

Tuwing may pulang makatang pumapanaw

Tumitigil sa pag-inog, ang mundo’y

Hindi humihinga sansaglit.

 

Hindi dumadaloy ang mga ilog

Ang hangi’y hindi umiihip

Ang ulap ay ayaw lumipad

Ang dagat ay hindi dumadaluyong

Walang tumutubo sa lupa

Ang buhangin ay nalulusaw

Walang bulkang sumasabog

Ang mga bato’y nadudurog.

 

Samahan natin silang humimlay panandalian.

At sa gitna ng ating dalamhati…

 

Ating handugan ng awit ang martir

Bayaning aalayan ng bulaklak at berso

Pagpupugayan ng mga talumpati

At palakpakan ng mahaba’t masigabo.

Gawing balada ang pamanang sulatin

Ipatupad ang kanyang habilin

Sa paraang ito natin muling buhayin

Ang damdaming lugmok sa pighati.

 

‘Matapang na tumindig sa unos

Bangon! Lumaban! upang masilayan ang ating bukas.’

 

At tayong naiwan ay tutugon

Matapang na haharapin ang hamon

Atin muling painugin ang daigdig

Ipagpapatuloy ang rebolusyon.

 

                                                 –9:36 n.g.

                                                   16 Agosto 2018

                                                   Lungsod Quezon