Maria Lorena Morelos Barros, or Lorie as she was fondly called, was born on 18 March 1948 in Baguio City, Philippines. She graduated magna cum laude in Anthropology at the University of the Philippines in Diliman.
In April 1970, together with other young women revolutionaries, she co-founded MAKIBAKA or Malayang Kilusan ng Bagong Kababaihan (Free Movement of New Women), the first national democratic organization of women that carried the call for genuine freedom democracy and sought for the liberation of women in the context of the struggle against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism in the Philippines.
Before the founding of MAKIBAKA, Lorie, also a prolific writer and poet, wrote two seminal essays, Liberated Women I and II, in which she discussed the role of women in society and their place in the revolutionary struggle. In Liberated Women II, she asserts that “the new woman, the new Filipina, is first and foremost a militant,” directly challenging the entrenched feudal-patriarchal system and culture that dominate women.
In August 1971, when the Writ of Habeas Corpus was suspended, Lorie went underground and joined the New People’s Army in Isabela. Two years later, during Martial Law, she was captured in Sorsogon and detained at the Ipil detention center, Fort Bonifacio. She later escaped with several others and rejoined the NPA in Southern Tagalog.
On March 24, 1976, just six days after turning 28, Laurie, then a guerrilla squad leader was killed in a military operation in Mauban, Quezon.
Gone for 50 years, yet her indomitable revolutionary spirit lives on, inspiring many women to continue the fight and join the revolutionary militant struggle for women’s genuine liberation.