Ka Elvira, the caring revolutionary
This May, Red fighters scattered along the mountains and meadows of the Ilocos-Cordillera region the ashes of Ka Elvira�veteran of the revolution and loving comrade.
She was known for her hearty laughter. She had a soft heart for comrades in the field. She was a veteran, with the qualities of Tandang Sora and Gabriela Silang.
Ka Elvira or Isabelita del Pilar, one of the first comrades to conduct revolutionary work in the Ilocos-Cordillera region, died of a serious illness on April 13, 2003. Before she died, she was a member of the Party Regional Committee in Ilocos-Cordillera from 1998 and was assigned to finance work.
Despite the excruciating pain she suffered due to successive operations and ineffective drugs, she still thought of comrades and saw to their welfare.
She cried whenever comrades and their families in the guerrilla fronts could not receive sufficient financial subsidies. She creatively raised funds and solicited material help for comrades. As a sign of her concern, she often sent food that she cooked herself to comrades, especially in guerrilla zones in Abra and Ifugao where she conducted revolutionary work for a long time.
In school, she was called �beauty and brains.� She would�ve gone a long way had she pursued a bourgeois lifestyle, but she chose to serve the masses. She was the first student in Baguio City to be expelled from school for activism. Several times she was arrested or chased by the military during strikes and demonstations. She was among the first to organize workers in Baguio City, Benguet and La Union. She integrated with the workers and often joined them in their picket lines and strikes.
Ka Elvira was one of the first students to heed the call to go to the countryside. She served as an organizer and eventually joined the NPA before the imposition of martial law. She went to a guerrilla zone in Abra in 1973. It had just been opened and the comrades who had been deployed to the area had no experience in building guerrilla zones. They faced the massive deployment of military forces because the area was the fiefdom of the warlord-politician Carmelo Barbero, then defense undersecretary of the fascist Marcos.
Many people from Malibcong, Lacub and Tineg still talk about how Ka Elvira tirelessly cared for the sick when an epidemic struck their towns. The epidemic was contained because under Ka Elvira�s leadership, comrades and the masses studied the possible causes and remedies for the disease. She was then the medical officer of the NPA unit operating in the area. She would walk through the forest even at night and under the rain, just to be able to give even temporary relief to those who were ill. A story they have never forgotten recounts how Ka Elvira sucked the phlegm from the nostrils of a child who was running a high fever and could no longer breathe.
She was arrested in 1974 and gave birth to her first child in prison. When she was released in 1976, she was deployed to Ifugao. While on a mission to bring arms and ammunition to Ifugao in 1978, the vehicle she was riding fell into a ravine and exploded, seriously injuring her. She was once again arrested in hospital. Upon her release in 1980, she returned forthwith to Ifugao, even with one of her lungs ruined and several ribs broken from the accident.
In Ifugao, the masses knew instantly that Ka Elvira�s unit was around because upon coming home from their swidden farms, they found their houses cleaned and there was cooked food ready. She never despaired despite the hardships they suffered in opening the guerrilla zone and served as an inspiration to newly recruited guerrillas and the masses. She was happy to be of service to the masses, organizing them and providing them political education. She always remembered to see to the masses� health and economic welfare, especially since Ifugao is one of the most impoverished and neglected provinces of the reactionary government.
Ka Elvira liked to tell stories and she was known for it. She recounted their experiences in building guerrilla zones, the anomalies committed by Conrado Balweg and his cohorts who formed the CPLA and the problems that resulted from their treachery, and her many stints in prison (in Camp Dangwa, Camp Olivas and Camp Bagong Diwa), all interspersed with her crisp, hearty laughter.
In the 32 years she devoted to the movement, she was exemplary in her revolutionary zeal and her spirit never faltered. She was a wellspring of energy, firmness and strong fighting spirit. During the Second Great Rectification Movement, she assisted those whose revolutionary spirit had weakened and helped in drawing rich lessons from the long revolutionary experience that she was a part of.
She always said, �The movement began with practically nothing. We joined the NPA with no experience on how to use weapons or build guerrilla zones. All we had was revolutionary theory and the hope of a new future for the oppressed.�
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