Randy Malayao and Randy Echanis were two Filipino revolutionaries who dedicated their entire lives in service of the Filipino people’s struggle for national and social liberation. The two are from different generations and arenas of struggle, and they indeed shared the same name. But more importantly, they were bound by a common dedication to wholeheartedly and selflessly serve the people.
Randy Malayao: “To Serve the People Selflessly Is Glorious”
“To serve the people selflessly is glorious.” These words, spoken by Felix Randy Malayao, have become etched into the collective memory of human rights defenders, peace advocates, and activists inspired by his life and legacy. Randy was assassinated while asleep in a passenger bus on his way to his home town on January 30, 2019.
Randy Malayao was the youngest peace consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) in its peace negotiations with Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP). He served as one of the main spokespersons for the NDFP Peace Negotiating Panel during the Oslo round of talks in 2017.
Randy devoted more than three decades of his life to the people’s movement: years spent organizing, educating, building alliances, and working tirelessly for a just and lasting peace. He was supposed to be protected by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), a peace agreement signed by both the GRP and the NDFP panels that protects negotiators and consultants from arrest, surveillance, and attack. That protection was blatantly violated. He became one of the first NDFP peace consultants to be killed following Duterte’s unilateral termination of the peace negotiations on November 23, 2017. Prior to Randy, a number of peace consultants have been arrested with trumped up charges.
In one of the many tributes to Randy, one of his comrades from Cagayan Valley recalled that Randy could have chosen a quieter, more comfortable life, but doing so would have meant turning his back on the people, something he was constitutionally incapable of doing.
He was known as a hands-on organizer and bridge-builder. From the College Editors Guild of the Philippines to Bayan Muna and the Makabayan Coalition, Randy excelled at building alliances, uniting people across political affiliations without compromising principles.
As regional coordinator of Bayan Muna in Cagayan Valley, vice president for Luzon of the Makabayan Coalition, and a peace advocate, Randy embodied the unity of struggle for human rights, democracy, and peace.
Randy Echanis: “Pasted on the wall of history”
Ka Randall “Randy” Echanis belonged to an earlier generation of revolutionaries, forged in the crucible of the First Quarter Storm and the rapid expansion of the people’s war in the 1970s. His life represents decades of consistent, disciplined struggle to break the backbone of feudal and semifeudal exploitation and to liberate the Filipino people from US imperialist domination, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism.
Ka Randall was among the students from Manila who went to the countryside and joined the newly founded New People’s Army. From 1970 to 1982, he played a key role in building the people’s army and peasant movement in Isabela, Cagayan, the Cordillera, and Ilocos. He led early mass campaigns against large haciendas and organized open actions against feudal and semifeudal exploitation. This was the work that allowed him to grasp deeply the central role of the antifeudal peasant struggle in Philippine society.
Repeated imprisonment did not break him. Detained under the Marcos dictatorship, the Aquino regime, and later under Macapagal-Arroyo, Ka Randall emerged from prison each time more resolute. After his release in 1992, he devoted himself fully to the open democratic movement, serving political detainees and, for over two decades, leading mass organizations of peasants and agricultural workers.
As chairperson of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), founding leader of the Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agikultura (UMA), and chair of Anakpawis Partylist, Ka Randall fought both in the streets and within the reactionary parliament. He relentlessly exposed bogus land reform programs at a time when neoliberalism, “free market” dogma, and the global “war on terror” were being used to justify militarization and repression.
He was also a key NDFP peace consultant on agrarian reform and rural development, and a member of the Reciprocal Working Committee on Social and Economic Reforms. His contributions to the drafting of Comprehensive Agreement on Socio Economic Reforms (CASER) were foundational.
Even in death, Ka Randall’s life continues to reverberate through the generations of struggle he helped forge. Perhaps most painfully and powerfully through his daughter, Amanda Echanis. Like her father, Amanda has known the cruelty of the reactionary state firsthand, having been imprisoned for her political work. From her jail cell, she wrote a poem for her father entitled “Pasted on the wall of history” highlighting the enduring relevance of Ka Randall’s contributions to the struggle for national and social liberation in the Philippines.
Ka Randall’s assassination, like that of Ka Randy, was meant to terrorize the revolutionary movement into submission. Instead, the brutal killings of Randy Malayao and Randy Echanis only exposed the puppet regime’s desperation and served only to deepen their isolation from the Filipino masses.
The fascist state may murder revolutionaries, but it cannot kill the revolution. Ka Randy Malayao and Ka Randy Echanis will both live on in the next generation of activists and youth who continue to organize, in the peasants who fight for land, in the workers who demand dignity, and in the masses who refuse to be silenced.