“The ruling class terrifies itself over socially aware youth and critical thinkers,” said Maoche Legislador, spokesperson of the Negros Island Regional Operational Command (Apolinario Gatmaitan Command) of the NPA, in a fitting tribute to Vince Francis “Ka Moymoy” Dingding.
Ka Moymoy was martyred on May 16 in Barangay Abaca, Cauayan, Negros Occidental together with five other Red fighters of the New People’s Army-Southwest Negros (Armando Sumayang Jr. Command). Ka Poy was the Secretary of the Southwest Negros Guerilla Front at the time of his death. He was 30.
Ka Moymoy, otherwise known as Ka Poy or Ka Cat to the masses of Negros Occidental, was an alumnus of the University of the Philippines Cebu where he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science in 2016. Even at a young age, Ka Poy was keenly aware of the need to integrate with the masses across communities in Cebu in order to arouse, organize and mobilize them to fight for their rights and ultimately to change Philippine society.
After graduating, Ka Moymoy took on a corporate job in the technology sector. But he quickly came to recognize the limitations to a life devoted solely to personal success. The long hours and modest compensation of corporate work only sharpened his awareness of the deeper injustices embedded in the semicolonial and semifeudal Philippine society.
In 2018, he took his first steps into revolutionary work through a Tour of Duty (TOD) with the NPA. What began as a temporary exposure trip quickly became his lifelong calling. Within a matter of months, he left behind the comforts of his petty bourgeois life together with the certainties of his former career as an IT professional and decided to dedicate himself fully to the people’s struggle for national liberation.
The countryside became his classroom, the masses his teachers, and service to the people his daily practice. Living among the peasant communities of Negros, he devoted himself to the patient and arduous task of helping the masses improve their lives and strengthen their capacity to fight. He taught literacy to children and to farm workers who had been denied education, believing that every person who learned to read and write gained another tool in their common struggle against exploitation. Wherever contradictions emerged among the people, Ka Moymoy worked tirelessly to resolve them, combining principled leadership with a deep respect for the experience and practice of the masses.
Ka Moymoy possessed a keen political mind that enabled him to grasp the roots of problems quickly and identify the lessons needed to overcome them. Many comrades remember how he would draw from revolutionary theory as a living guide to daily revolutionary practice, helping individuals and collectives navigate political challenges. His political guidance was always grounded, practical, and attentive to the concrete conditions facing those around him.
Yet those who knew him best remember not only his intellect but also his humanity. He brought warmth into difficult situations and knew how to lift spirits during long days of work and struggle. His wit and humor strengthened camaraderie, while his maturity and sense of responsibility earned the trust of fellow revolutionaries. He was also an accomplished cultural worker whose poetry gave voice to the hopes, sacrifices, and aspirations of the Filipino people, enriching the revolutionary movement through art as well as action.
The life of Ka Moymoy reminds us that the revolutionary potential of the youth is realized in full integration with the masses and their struggles. It is through sharing the lives of workers and peasants, learning from their struggles and participating in their collective aspirations that young people discover their highest purpose in service to the revolution. His life may have been cut short, but the example he leaves behind continues to illuminate the path for the socially aware and critical thinking youth to dedicate their talents, energy and lives to the cause of national and social liberation.
Quoting from Maoche Legislador’s tribute, the ruling classes “are deeply wary of an educated generation because they know that enlightenment in this semi-colonial and semi-feudal system will prompt them to topple this system completely.”