The NDFP-Mindanao joins the family, all revolutionary forces and masses in Mindanao and the whole nation in mourning for the brutal death of Comrade Parago (Leoncio Pitao) and Comrade Kyle (Vanessa Limpag), a Red medical officer, in the bloody hands of AFP elements on June 28, 2015 in Purok 9, Brgy. Pañalum, Paquibato District, Davao City. We are also one with them in giving the highest honor to Comrades Parago and Kyle for making the ultimate sacrifice for the revolution and for the general interest of the Filipino people. Moreover, we are united with them in utterly condemning the callous mercenaries who mercilessly snuffed out the lives of Comrade Parago and Kyle, and equally condemning the present semi-feudal and semi-colonial system that perpetuates oppression and exploitation upon the Filipino society.
Comrade Parago, your 37 years of uninterrupted commitment to the revolution and service to the interest of the vast majority of the people amid unfathomable sacrifices and great challenges, revealed your undying faithfulness to your sworn oath to the Party, Red army and the people.
Fourteen years since you first joined the New People’s Army, you overcame your first great challenge, Comrade Parago, in resolutely abiding by and carrying out the basic principles and line of the Party during the Second Great Rectification movement, after the revolutionary movement suffered a major decline nationwide as a result of the serious deviations and abandonment of the basic principles and line of the Party.
This was followed when your sincerity and commitment to the proletarian standpoint was put to the test during your capture in 1999. All that time when you were right in the grip of the enemy, you never compromised the interest of the revolution and the people, and, upon your release in 2001, you did not hesitate to return to the embrace of the revolution and continue your service to the people.
Yet another painful challenge you overcame was when your 22-yr old daughter, Rebelyn, was raped, tortured and brutally murdered in 2009, nabbed by military agents when she headed for the school where she taught. The enemy perpetrated this despicable crime to weaken your revolutionary resolve, but, they were wrong! Instead of demoralizing you, they fanned the flames of your class hatred against the ruling classes and this system that perpetuates injustice and made hapless victims out of your daughter and the entire Filipino society.
Compounding your trials and tribulations, Ka Parago, you had to deal with your diabetes, hyperthyroidism, hepatitis and other complications. These past few years you had to endure a seriously declining health condition, yet even this did not spur you to abandon the revolution and instead motivated you to serve people’s interests further in the middle of many difficulties in confronting full-scale, vicious military campaigns and operations under the Oplan Bayanihan of the US-Aquino regime, which is directly implemented by the Eastmincom of the AFP.
And when you needed most intensive medical attention, you chose to stay within the guerrilla zone for your treatments instead of consenting to the “sugar-coated bullet” offered by AFP to treat you in a hospital. Truly a Revolutionary and a Communist that you are, you bravely accepted the highest sacrifice when the place where you were staying to recuperate was raided and, as a result, you were gruesomely killed, even when you were no longer capable of fighting back. Merciless Scout Rangers, who had no regard for either international laws of war or the CARHRIHL, did not spare Ka Kyle despite having already surrendered.
We can understand the enmity these ruthless mercenaries of the ruling class hold toward you, Comrade Parago. This is because you have significantly contributed to a long list of victories to advance the armed revolution here in the Southern Mindanao region (SMR) and in the entire island as well. Some of these resounding victories include: the establishment of one of the units most feared by enemy forces, the First Pulang Bagani Company, which is under your leadership; the capture as Prisoners of War (POW) of AFP Gen. Obilio and Capt. Montealto; the successful raid on DAPECOL, and a host of other successes. It cannot also be denied that the ruling classes dreaded the fact that, under your leadership, areas within Davao City have been successfully recovered and consolidated by the Pulang Bagani Company.
Today, while we bring Comrade Parago and Comrade Kyle to their final resting place, the murderous AFP, the ruling class and their US imperialist master gloat, believing that with Comrade Parago’s demise, the huge thorn from their throats has finally been pulled out. Well, they are dead wrong, because the legacy that has been sown by Comrade Parago together with the people cannot be stopped from sprouting and bear the fruit of even bigger victories to advance the revolution further in SMR as a contribution to the victories in the whole of Mindanao and the entire nation, until this system that has fettered the oppressed and the exploited is completely eradicated and achieve our dream of ultimate victory.
Comrade Parago, you come from a simple peasant family, and true to the nature of your humble origin, you came with limitations and weaknesses. However, you have proven to all how a humble peasant can lead a meaningful life by boundlessly serving the interests of the people through the Revolution and becoming a Communist. Not having attained higher levels of bourgeois education certainly did not stop you from grasping Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a tool to analyze the ills of Philippine society and, alongside the people, work towards achieving social emancipation and democracy as a springboard to establish socialism in the future.
Comrade Parago, you are an inspiration to Communists, to Red fighters of the NPA, to peasants, workers, youth and students, the Moro and Lumad peoples, and to society’s middle classes who are seeking for genuine social change. Your life in the struggle as well as your death mirror the people’s aspiration for liberation and democracy in our country. Your ultimate sacrifice will not be in vain, Comrade Parago.
LONG LIVE THE LEGACY OF KA PARAGO!
LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT OF KA KYLE AND OTHER REVOLUTIONARY MARTYRS!
LONG LIVE THEPEOPLE’S STRUGGLE!
ADVANCE THE REVOLUTION!
(sgd)
Ka Oris
Spokesperson
NDFP-Mindanao
July 7, 2015
