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The Jennifer “Maria” Cariño Command

in Cherish

In 2017, the New People’s Army (NPA) in Benguet province launched a successful raid in a police outpost in the town of Buguias. Aside from confiscating firearms and ammunition and radio sets, the action was “punitive” because of the illegal and anti-social activities of the Buguias policemen, among them: extortion activities from vegetable farmers, drug trafficking, and operation of bars. The raid was led by the Jennifer Cariño Command-NPA.

Long before Jennifer Cariño became a command, she was Jingjing, born on March 4, 1950 in Baguio City to a well-to-do and respected Ibaloy family. Her mother hails from Cebu. She was bequeathed the beautiful features of an Ibaloy-Cebuano blend. Her grandfather was the first Igorot Mayor of Baguio City where the family owned the land now occupied by the Camp John Hay.

Why would a young woman gifted with beauty and brains leave behind her affluent family and all the opportunities for a comfortable life and distinguished place in the professional arena for a risky and difficult life in a guerrilla zone, among the most impoverished masses, her kailian?

In Jingjing’s veins ran the blood of a fighter. Her grandfather, Mateo Cariño, filed a suit in the US court against the American intrusion into their land. In high school, Jingjing wrote an article in their school organ in protest of the remark of then Foreign Affairs Secretary Carlos P. Romulo that Igorots are not Filipinos.

Jingjing was a conscientious student. She was often seen alone in the campus grounds pensively poring on a book. In the classroom, she was never satisfied with mere statement of facts. She would dig deeper, posing no nonsense questions to her professors. She wanted more—realities and truths. She was indeed a no nonsense student. She was an A-1 student especially in Physics and Math courses at the University of the Philippines-Baguio.

But it was not all cerebral work for Jingjing. The music in her soul brought her to folk houses around the city, singing with the strum of her guitar. She idolized the Beatles.

In her junior year, Jingjing ran for the student council under the Progressive Party taking up the issues of lower tuition fees and removal of the Spanish course. That probably started her activism years.

In 1969, she became a member of the Kabataang Makabayan-Baguio Chapter. She led student actions supporting market vendors in their fight against demolition and striking workers in their demand for higher wages and better working conditions. Later, she dropped out of school and became full time activist. The music in her soul was shared with activists as they sang protest songs and staged cultural presentations in rallies.

In 1972, Jingjing married Gilbert Pimentel, an activist from the Lyceum University in Manila who was organizing Benguet farmers at that time. Gilbert also hails from the Cordilleras. They had a meeting of the minds on many political issues, particularly the national minority question. It was also on the same year when their house raided but she eluded arrest. Later, she left Baguio disguised as a nun.

When Gilbert was arrested after, Jingjing left her baby with her family with the fervent request that Malaya, her daughter, be apprised when she grew up of what her parents had fought for. She joined the NPA and lived in Ifugao serving the most impoverished masses in the Kalanguya territory. Ka Maria, as she became known in the guerrilla zone, taught the illiterate masses how to read and write. She also served as medical staff. And she did what she loved most, wrote revolutionary songs and taught these to the masses.

Her enlightenment from the campus DGs (discussion groups) on Marxism, Leninism and Maoism, the truth and realities she found from her integration with the masses, the oppression and exploitation doubly experienced by the national minorities of which she belonged and the invincible aspiration of the revolutionary movement to dismantle the unjust structures and end man’s inhumanity amplified her resolve to serve the revolution. And this resolve warranted yielding all her privileges and giving all her endowments for the revolution.

Ka Maria, the beloved comrade of the tribe, died in 1976 in Hungduan, Ifugao.

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The real extortionist drives the TRAIN

in Editorial 
by Liberation Staff

The reactionary government criticizes the revolutionary taxation levied on foreign corporations and local big compradors as extortion. But these taxes are for the use of the land and natural resources in the guerrilla fronts which truly belong to the people and should primarily benefit them. Unlike the bureaucrat capitalists in government, who extort and pocket people’s taxes for their personal aggrandizement, revolutionary taxes serve the masses and sustain the democratic revolution that will liberate them from the yoke of ruling class exploitation.

The Duterte government’s new tax reform package is one big extortion activity against the poor.  Like a campaign promise aimed to lure and deceive, what the law offers in one hand it takes away by the other as expeditiously and as brashly. The Tax Reform Acceleration and Inclusion (TRAIN) Law, R.A. 10963, promised to benefit more workers as tax exemption is expanded to cover not only the minimum wage earners but also those in the middle income group receiving P250,000 per year. But, the adjustment in excise taxes of petroleum products such as diesel and LPG, coal and sugar-sweetened beverages and expansion of the tax base by removing Value Added Tax (VAT) exemptions have adverse repercussion especially on the poor.  Increase in petroleum products adversely affects the price of electricity since bunker oil is used to fuel power generation, just as coal does. Price increases of diesel and gas, which are used to transport people and deliver goods, increase consumption spending.

Contrary to the Department of Finance (DOF) claims, majority of Filipinos, about 15.2 million families, will not benefit from personal income tax exemptions (PIT). They are either minimum wage earners who are already tax exempt or informal sector with irregular income who do not pay income tax. However, they will surely bear the brunt of the domino-effect price increases in hosts of goods, utilities and services.

The DOF continues to justify the TRAIN with its convoluted reasoning supported by an overdose of statistics. On the other hand, the mitigation measures offered by the government to cushion the TRAIN impact on consumer prices is an admission of the scourge faced by the poor from it.  The measures include a 10% discount on NFA rice up to 20 kilos a month, tax reform cash transfer of P200 per month for the poorest 50% households starting in 2018, free skills training under TESDA－certainly a pittance mooched off “government magnanimity”.

Yet, what can be expected of a reactionary State ruled by majority of landlords and big compradors but legislations for their self-serving interests. The Build-Build-Build program obsession of the Duterte government for infrastructures, where most of the increase in taxes are supposedly trained at, serve the development and investments for foreign investors, local big compradors and landlords. Likewise, the increase in salaries of State armed forces is to oil their killing machine and perpetuate their fascist rule.

In contrast, the revolutionary taxes build schools to train not only the youth but also adults on crafts to increase income, as well as on numeracy and literacy; the peasants to improve their agricultural productivity and insure food sustainability. Through these, the masses in the far-flung areas long neglected by the imperial government can avail of health and medical services. The training of paramedics is an important aspect of these services. Cooperatives are put up to jump start their collective endeavour for improving their livelihood. All efforts help boost the communities’ self-reliance. While complying with the NDFP policy on environmental protection and ecological conservation, relief and rehabilitation program is likewise instituted to cope with calamities, including man-made disasters from destructive mining and logging of foreign and local corporations.

The national democratic revolution advances through the strength and determination of the revolutionary forces and the myriad support of the masses under the leadership of the Communists Party of the Philippines (CPP), the New People’s Army (NPA) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). Revenues from revolutionary taxation, including voluntary financial contributions from nationalist businesses and enlightened gentry, who believe in the justness and necessity of the revolution, help in the advance the democratic struggle. These also provide for the needs of the NPA as they immerse, organize and serve the masses.

Hence, no matter how much the reactionary government vilified the revolutionary movement and its taxation activity, it has failed desperately.  In the same breath, the reactionary government will fail, desperately, to check the advance of the people’s democratic revolution. ###

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Health Services Benefit Peasants, Indigenous Peoples in Guerrilla Fronts

in Mainstream 
by Pat Gambao and Iliya Makalipay

It is not uncommon for people in the remote areas in the Philippines to die without seeing a doctor in their lifetime. A child who is seriously ill, for example, had to be brought on foot to the nearest hospital, usually more than 20 kilometers away from the community. There are no clinics in the villages, and if there are, they remain as structures because there are no medical personnel from the reactionary government, not even a paramedic.

But the scenario has slowly changed when members of the New People’s Army (NPA) double as people’s medics—holding medical missions and treating the sick as they move from one barrio to the next.

The NPA medics are trained mostly by members of MASAPA (Makabayang Samahang Pangkalusugan) or the Patriotic Association of Health practitioners, an allied organization of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The NPA, in turn, sets-up barrio health committees as part of their organizing work and in establishing and consolidating revolutionary mass organizations. Together, the NPA and MASAPA members fill in the vacuum left by the reactionary Philippine government, which has historically neglected the delivery of social services to the marginalized segments of the society.

 

Revolutionary medical practitioners

Founded in 1980’s, MASAPA is one of the pillars of the NDFP. From its inception, it has organized doctors, nurses, medical students, and others in the health sector who are based in urban centers. In an interview, MASAPA Spokesperson Blanca Luna explained that MASAPA members train the NPA on health and medical work and provide direct health services to Party members, the red fighters, and masses in the guerrilla fronts. It also maintains a network of allies in the medical field who are likewise tapped for the same activities. Traditional healers such as hilot and komadrona are also organized as they are in the frontline of health services in the communities.

In the urban centers, “MASAPA members organize and mobilize the health sector to fight for their rights to better wages, form unions in their work place and push for the people’s right to health as an integral part of the struggle for national democracy. MASAPA takes an active part in the urban mass movement and draws in the middle forces to support, directly or indirectly, the armed struggle,” Luna elaborated.

 

Three-tiered health training

The overall development of the revolutionary health work parallels that of the development and the requirements of the people’s war. To this, Luna explained, “the members of MASAPA should synchronize its efforts with the developments in the guerrilla fronts by reaching out to more health workers and practitioners.”

Tapping the expertise of its members and allies in the medical field and in consultation with the cadres involved in the military and mass work in the countryside, MASAPA has designed a three-tiered health training program for the NPA—which the NPA also uses to train the revolutionary masses: Basic Orientation Course, Intermediate, and Advance. The courses are all premised on preventive health care but, the advance course is geared towards developing the capabilities of the medics in the people’s army in lifesaving support system. “As the people’s war advances, so does the need to advance the capacity of the medics of the people’s army,” Luna pointed out.

The Basic Orientation Course includes first aid, sanitation, family planning, and the use of alternative medicine such as acupuncture and herbal medicine. On the ground, these translates to people’s health campaigns that include backyard gardening, herbal garden, anti-dengue drive, and construction of safe water and drainage systems. For some medics, their interaction with the indigenous peoples has introduced them to more plant-based cures for common ailments.

The Intermediate Course is geared towards the study of anatomy, child birthing, herbal medicine production, and special procedures that include tooth extraction, simple surgery, trauma and mental health care. A number of communities now produce their own capsules and ointments from plants and herbs.

Medics in the NPA take up the Advance Course where they are taught more elaborately about anatomy and anesthesia and to perform more complicated surgical procedures. In some regions, select health units in the NPA are now able to perform abdominal surgery, the most complicated even among those who went through medical school.

These training take about two weeks to one month, depending on the level. Trainees have at least reached the elementary level and are around 20 to 30 years old.

 

Urban doctors meet their counterparts

The interest and enthusiasm of the masses and the NPA in the guerrilla fronts to learn are inspiring enough for the allies and members of MASAPA who come to the front to give their best to impart lessons not only on health care, preventive medicine and first aid but also on other nuances of medical practice.

Said interest and enthusiasm enable even the non-erudite peasants to acquire the skills of simple applications of medical care and practice. Some who had reached a relatively higher educational level than most of the masses were able to finish the three levels of medical training given by the doctors.

Ka Alex, an urban-based doctor who is among the regular instructors in these training is amazed with how they are able to pack their years of medical school into a one to two-month training modules and teach them to those who barely finished elementary school.

He is equally impressed with how the mostly peasant members of the NPA learn these medical procedures; they, who at the start of the training, only brought with them their willingness to listen and learn and their compassion to care for the sick or wounded comrades, red fighters, and masses.

When the training is over, both urban doctors and NPA medics end up fulfilled.

A medic of the NPA in Mindanao, Ka Tonyo, recalled they once performed abdominal surgery on a monkey they found in the forest. But when the monkey regained consciousness after the operation, it panicked and quickly removed the stitches on its belly, causing its death. Since then, they stopped using monkeys and opted for animals who are more placid.

Aside from rendering their expertise to develop health cadres among the NPA and among the masses, the experiences of MASAPA members in the various guerrilla fronts temper them and strengthen their commitment to the revolution and the masses. “MASAPA members do not only impart their knowledge to the red fighters but also learn from their experiences and from the lives of the masses,” Ka Alex said.

“The interaction with the NPA and the masses in the course of providing services helps in deepening the members’ grasp of the people’s war—why it is legitimate, necessary and who benefits from it,” Luna concurred.

It is not surprising, thus, that a number of MASAPA members opted to remain in the countryside and practice their knowledge and skills in the guerrilla fronts and among the masses. Experiencing the enthusiasm of the NPA members to learn medical procedures and their efforts to treat and heal their comrades and the masses are compelling reasons for the professional medical practitioners to stay in the fronts.

In the guerilla zones, MASAPA and the NPA works hand in hand in the delivery of the much-needed health services in remote villages.

 

Defining and developing the alternative health care system

MASAPA and NPA members have successfully provided free health and medical services to the people. The infrastructure for health services is now in place at all levels of the Party and NPA structure and in the organs of political power—from the national to the barrio levels, from squads to battalions of the NPA.

Aside from being part of the revolutionary movement’s machinery for health services, MASAPA is one of the prime movers in the development of the alternative health care program of the national democratic revolutionary movement. With the NPA, they are sowing seeds of the alternative health care system of the nation, starting in the guerrilla fronts in the countryside. ###

 

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Coronacion “Waling-Waling” Chiva

in Cherish

Waling-waling is a beautiful orchid that blooms in the deep recesses of the forests of Panay contending for sunlight with intertwining vines and branches. In analogy, the Coronacion “Waling-waling” Chiva Regional Command of the New People’s Army in Panay continues its struggle amid class contradiction for liberation from the oppressive semi-feudal semi-colonial social order.

The Command was named after a woman, whose husband’s recognition of her valor and tenacity accorded her the nom de guerre Waling-waling.

Coronacion “Waling-waling” Chiva and her husband, Andres Togonon or Amang Ali, were members of the old Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB) in Panay, which waged an armed struggle against the Japanese invaders and later against the ruling US-puppet government. Andres was the political officer of the HMB while Corning became a commander of an HMB unit. They gallantly fought the armed forces of the reactionary government until the incorrect political line and adventurist stance of the Lava leadership, in its frantic dash for power, permeated the HMB in Panay causing its decline and eventual collapse. Commander Waling-waling led the platoon that made the last stand against the enemy in Nalbugan, Bingawan, Iloilo. Eighteen of them were surrounded by 80 soldiers of the Expeditionary Force of the Philippine Army. Waling-waling’s will to fight to the end was doused by the sight of her men who were skeptical of the wisdom to continue the fight. She reluctantly ordered to put down their arms. For the first time in her guerrilla life, she cried. It was difficult to accept that the armed struggle of the HMB and the Party in Panay had ended.

Corning was arrested and joined her husband, Andres, in detention. Andres was earlier on arrested while teaching cadres and commanders of the old CPP and HMB at the Stalin University in the forested area of Taroytoy, Libacao, Aklan. Andres was among the five survivors of the Toroytoy massacre that took the lives of 36 leading HMB members. In collusion with Pablo Hipana, one of the students, the Battalion Combat Team of the enemy managed to encircle and attack the school.

Upon release from prison, Andres and Corning continued to organize workers in Davao. When they returned to Barangay Alibunan, Calinog in Panay, the national democratic revolution with a correct political line has advanced. A team of the New People’s Army (NPA) was deployed in Panay in 1971. The team, which got in touch with Corning and Andres, received a warm and cordial welcome. The resurgence of the revolution in Panay was a dream come-true for the couple. For despite the dismantling of the HMB, the revolutionary fire in their hearts was never extinguished and the hope and the will to see the struggling masses and the country free from oppression and exploitation never dwindled.

Corning, like a mother to her children on their first stride, guided the team. She was a leader who never lost the mien of Commander Waling-waling whose every command was firm, respected and obeyed. She helped the team take roots in Jalaud in Calinog, Tapaz and Libacao. She linked them to the families of former colleagues in the defunct HMB. The couple also let their eldest son, Dax, join the NPA. He was matyred in 1975. Despite the ferocity of Martial Law, Corning’s family relentlessly assisted the NPA.

Corning was an inspiration to the young batch of revolutionaries. When one of the ladies in the team was contemplating on a name to use in battle, Corning suggested her nom de guerre–Waling-waling. Humbled the young lady declined as she believed there was only one Waling-waling, there could never be any other. But like a true communist, who never rested on her laurels and who believed that the young generations should carry the torch of the continuing revolution, Corning insisted. Thus, the young warrior came to be known as her Junior.

Commander Waling-waling was killed in August 1977 by a military agent under the Central Command of the AFP in Cebu. Upon her death her husband, Andres, despite his advance age, joined the NPA. Together with his whole family, he continued the fight against the US-Marcos dictatorship.

In honor and memory of Coronacion “Waling-waling” Chiva, the Panay Regional Command was named after her. Her valuable contribution to the revolution – the best years of her life spent in the service to the revolutionary movement and the efforts to link the patriotic revolutionaries of the past to the new generation of revolutionaries – will remain an undying memento not just to look back to but to propel the continuing advance of the people’s revolution until the unjust social structures are put to rest.#

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