Correspondence Report
Ka Basil, a great revolutionary

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

On February 6, Mabini Permalu Fabon, 52, also known as Ka Basil, Ka Romy, Ka Andoy, Ka Benny, Ka Albert, Ka Bitoy and recently, Ka Apolinario, died while being transported to Batangas to receive treatment due to a sudden grave illness. Ka Basil was one of the revolutionaries who had served in Southern Tagalog the longest. His life mirrors the history of the revolutionary movement in the region.

Ka Basil was a member of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) when martial law was imposed in 1972. He was one of 15 activists who voluntarily headed for the Cavite countryside to organize the masses and

Assigned to Tagkawayan, Quezon in 1977, it was there that he fully grasped how to conduct expansion and consolidation work in a guerrilla front in accordance with the strategy of protracted people's war. At this time, the NPA's operations covered the expanse of the QBZ and for the first time reached the towns of Ragay and Lupi in Camarines Sur. Ka Basil contributed immensely to the development of education work, especially through the use of visual aids that helped peasants comprehend courses more quickly. It was also at this time that Ka Basil became a full-fledged member of the Party.

He was briefly assigned to propaganda work in 1980 where he oversaw the publication of Kalatas, the region's revolutionary newspaper. But in the same year, he was transferred to an organizing unit at the border of Batangas-Laguna-Quezon to expand the scope of NPA operations in the area. The NPA successfully began revolutionary work in Lipa, Padre Garcia, Rosario, Taysan, San Juan and Lobo in eastern Batangas despite the AFP's intense operations.

But the unit to which Ka Basil belonged endured harsh blows. In 1982, his unit was encircled and virtually wiped out in Lipa, where only Ka Basil and one other comrade survived. Nevertheless, Ka Basil's persistence and determination did not diminish.

It was then that he seriously entertained thoughts of marriage and family within the framework of his revolutionary work in the countryside. He married his sweetheart on March 29, 1985 in a cave in Mt. Banoy in Batangas in the midst of an intense enemy military operation in the area.

By 1985, he participated in the second regional conference and was elected a regular member of the Party Regional Committee in ST.

In 1988, he was victimized by Operation Missing Link (OPML), the anti-infiltration hysteria carried out in ST. He was among those released when the Party leadership conducted a review of the campaign and put a stop to it. With the help of comrades, he summed up his experience as an OPML victim and strove to overcome its physical and psychological effects on him. He immediately subsumed himself to the framework of setting right the organization, maintained links with comrades and performed revolutionary tasks that he was capable of doing as he recovered. While recuperating, he did what he could to help alleviate his wife and only child's economic problems.

All the while, he continued to read the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao, upheld the basic principles and outlook of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism and held fast to his determination as a revolutionary. Not long after, he decided to work once more for the revolution on a full-time basis.

When the Second Great Rectification Movement (SGRM) was launched in 1992, he immediately embraced its lessons and faced its challenges. Forthwith, he responded to the Party's call to reaffirm basic principles, which included firmly upholding armed struggle. Even as he remained determined to work anew in a guerrilla front, he was first assigned to carry out revolutionary work in the city.

In 1998, he rejoined the NPA. He was entrusted the responsibility of overseeing a district-size guerrilla front in Quezon.

Comrades admired his unfaltering dedication to the revolution despite the pain and hardships that he endured in rejoining the NPA and leading a guerrilla front. Battle wounds, the occasional pangs of hunger and other sacrifices in waging revolution were of no consequence to him.

He quickly overcame these trials and remained steadfast in the midst of militarization that ravaged the guerrilla front that he had been assigned to. Not long afterwards, he was deployed to Mindoro.

His over three-year stint in Eastern Mindoro gave him renewed vigor and hope in advancing the revolution. He recollected the many experiences he had accumulated in his revolutionary work in Cavite, the Quezon-Bicol Zone, Batangas and Laguna. Comrades recognized the value of his wealth of knowledge and experience.

Even as he thoroughly valued the lessons of the SGRM, he further saw and grasped its finer points, especially in rectifying previous weaknesses in mass work and in the NPA's other tasks. He did not falter, but rather was challenged even more to further rectify and better himself in his new disposition.

All of the comrades who came to know him salute his outstanding positive qualities. He was a great example to comrades who fell victim to OPML, strove to overcome it and embrace and uphold the SGRM. He was resolute amid hardship and sacrifice, had no vices, was disciplined with respect to his actions and his health, and never craved for comfort, special food or ostentation.

(Drawn from "A Red Salute to Comrade Basil, Great Martyr of the Philippine Revolution"�a statement by Ka Higom Maragang, spokesperson of the Lucio de Guzman Command, Mindoro Island, February 8, 2004.)

21 February 2004
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