Their Deaths Are Heavier than Mt. Madya-as

A Tribute To Ka Romy And Ka Pogi

We pay the highest respects and honor to our revolutionary martyrs and heroes from Panay, Ka Romy (Geronimo Jerez) and Ka Pogi (Jaygi Deocampo) who, to their very last breath, served the Filipino people and the revolution. We convey our deepest condolences to their families, relatives, comrades and friends.

On September 1, 1999, at Barangay Mainit, Cuartero town of Capiz province, they courageously fought an enemy platoon of the counterrevolutionary armed forces of the US-Estrada regime and frustrated the enemy's attempt at encircling a squad of Red fighters of the New People's Army. They also inflicted significant losses on the enemy, killing the company commander and wounding two others.

Ka Romy, an engineering graduate from the Central Philippines University, was active as a revolutionary for more than 18 years. He joined the revolutionary youth organization Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth) and helped build the revolutionary underground in the cities. He organized workers and youth in the urban areas of Panay. In the countrysides, he integrated deeply with the peasant masses and developed their revolutionary mass organizations. He used his organizing skills to set up the revolutionary organs of political power and branches of the Communist Party of the Philippines. He played an important role in deepening and expanding the revolutionary mass base, the firm foundation for the tactical offensives of the New People's Army.

Ka Pogi exemplifies the peasantry's yearning for land and their resolute determination to carry out revolutionary land reform. Coming from a peasant family who are being forced out of their land by landlords backed up by reactionary state power, Ka Pogi's dedication and sacrifice, just as so many other peasants who have become Red Fighters and revolutionaries, demonstrates the peasantry's capacity to fulfill their crucial role as the main force of the Philippine revolution under working class leadership.

Ka Romy and Ka Pogi join the ranks of the glorious martyrs and heroes of Panay: Nonito Aguirre, Sr, (Tay Ed), Mary Gene Dumaplin (Ka Tingting), Crispin and Tony Tagamolila, the July 1973 Martyrs (Virgil Ortigas, Bert Espinas, Edmundo Legislador, Ferdinand Arceo and Vicente Beloria), Antonio "Tonyhil" Hilario, the veteran woman revolutionary Waling Waling, Servando Magbanua, and more than 200 other martyrs and heroes of Panay.

They died serving the Filipino people. Their deaths are heavier than Mt. Madya-as. Their revolutionary example shall guide and inspire us and the innumerable revolutionaries that will follow in their footsteps. #

Luis Jalandoni

Member
National Executive Committee
National Democratic Front
September 19, 1999

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