Jose Maria Sison | Chief Political Consultant | National Democratic Front of the Philippines September 05, 2021
Tribute by Jose Maria Sison & Julieta de Lima
Dear Comrades and Friends,
We convey our sincerest condolences to the entire family of Comrade Ramon Ramirez, especially his beloved wife Divina, and to all his closest comrades and friends who have known his best qualities as a committed revolutionary patriot, as a conscientious and diligent team mate and as a gentle and generous person.
We count ourselves among the comrades of Ka Monram. We have known him since he was a student activist and became a member of the Communist Party of the Philippine and a cadre in the department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines focused on military research and the application of science and technology in the people’s democratic revolution with a socialist perspective.
We have always appreciated Ka Monram’s academic excellence as a university scholar, his extracurricular activism, his topping the 1966 board exam for engineers and his success as a professional engineer in major corporations like the San Miguel Corporation and the Meralco. And yet he was active in promoting the national democratic movement among scientists and technologists from the time he joined the Samahan ng Makabayan Siyentipiko during the First Quarter Storm of 1970.
Ka Monram was a stalwart of AGHAM – Advocates of Science and Technology for the People. In this regard, he fought for the national industrialization of the Philippines by availing of Filipino scientists and technologists, mobilizing the labor power of Filipino workers and using the rich and natural resource base of the Philippines.
As exponent of science and technology for the people , he won the highest acclaim from the most respected institutions. The UP Alumni Engineers honored him with the National Achievement Award in Public Services in 2019. And the UP Alumni Association bestowed on him an award for social cohesion in 2011.
We give him the Red salute and admire him most for always having the commitment and time to exert his best in serving the people and performing anonymous and vitally important tasks and duties in the revolutionary movement as well as in the legal mass movement related to science and technology.
Ka Monram was never intimidated and deterred by being twice arrested and detained by the reactionary authorities. The first time was when he was arrested while in a youth meeting in Concepcion, Marikina on July 5, 1973 and detained until October 3, 1973. The second time was when he was arrested in December 1992, detained on false charges of murder, illegal possession of firearms and kidnapping but was released after three months.
Even when he was already supposed to be retired from his professional work as engineer, he founded the Arkibong Bayan in 1997 and became a founding convenor of the alliance, People Opposed to Warrantless Electricity Rates, whose campaigns won for consumers billions of pesos in refunds from Meralco. He also gave expert advice to the consumer advocacy group in 2001. He always stood for the consumers against the oligarchs and their foreign and local monopoly partners.
In connection with his work as archivist of the Arkibong Bayan in the last more than two decades, he became a daily presence in our lives because we always looked for his photographic postings and comments in his Facebook page and we also shared with him our articles. We often exchanged news and views with him and gave suggestions to each other. We have missed him since his demise.
A number of times in the past, we suggested to him to cover the intermittent GRP-NDFP peace negotiations or even to join the Reciprocal Working Committee of the NDFP on Social and Economic Reforms because of his scientific and engineering expertise. But he always said that he did not have a passport to travel. Perhaps he was more interested in covering the mass movement in the Philippines without interruption.
The archives that Monram accumulated are important to the people, the historians, the social scientists and social activists. They must be preserved by a trustworthy institution. And the work of Arkibong Bayan must be continued in honor of Ka Monram and in the service of the Filipino people.
All the contributions of Ka Monram to the people’s democratic revolution must be cherished and preserved in order to inspire the current and future generations of our youth and the people in their struggle for national and social liberation. His just revolutionary cause and deeds have strengthened and will continue to strengthen the revolutionary movement.
Long live the memory of Comrade Engineer Ramon Ramirez!
Avail of science and technology to advance the people’s democratic revolution!
Long live the advocates of science and technology for the people!
Long live the Filipino people and the Philippine revolution!
