Kabataang Makabayan (KM) chapter members from college in Manila gathered this week to meet and study. According to KM-Balangay Agaton Topacio, the gathering also included planning for the chapter’s celebration of the KM’s 61st anniversary on November 30.

The chapter met secretly and safely in the national capital. It carefully prepared for the activity and ensured that everyone who attended followed the security protocols.

The gathering’s main activity was the collective study of Ka Amado Guerrero’s work, Ang Mga Partikular na Katangian ng Ating Digmang Bayan (The Specific Characteristics of Our People’s War). KM-Agaton Topacio chose the work so that they could study the people’s war being waged by the New People’s Army (NPA), understand its particularities, and learn the methods for advancing it from one stage to another.

The attendees shared their views after the study. “This deepened my understanding of the people’s war,” new KM recruit Ka Sharon shared. Ka Linda said the study gave her a new perspective on the war from her former purely negative view of it.

The KM members also collectively viewed the Sine Proletaryo documentary Communist Life 2, studied the revolutionary song Pagbati, and read the poem Ang Gerilya ay Tulad ng Makata (The Guerrilla is Like a Poet) by Comrade Jose Maria Sison. The chapter also discussed revolutionary art and how it mirrors the art of guerrilla warfare.

“Despite my class background, I am now even more excited to join the next batch of students who will undergo revolutionary integration,” Ka Len said. Revolutionary integration is a program of KM and organizations under the National Democratic Front of the Philippines in which they immerse in an NPA unit and perform tasks within.

Another member of KM-Agaton Topacio also shared that the meeting and study further strengthened her desire to go full-time in the Red army. “I already see myself going full-time in the revolutionary army,” she said.

Chapter official Ka Ces expressed optimism about the gathering’s positive results. “I hope these discussions equip us further to steel ourselves ideologically,” she said. KM members need this most amid the intensifying political situation.

In conclusion, the chapter members reaffirmed their resolve to further expand KM in their workplaces and colleges to support the fighters of the NPA and the people’s war. The chapter stands ready to be at the forefront of the students and the youth to lead their struggle and present itself as a genuine alternative to those who are fed up with the rotten system and want revolution.

“The fire of the militant spirit and tradition of Kabataang Makabayan blazes in the step-by-step organizing of the youth along the path of the People’s Democratic Revolution. Let us study the people’s war and go to the countryside,” KM-Agaton Topacio spokesperson Dionisio Beltran declared