With raised fists and on behalf the Filipino youth, Kabataang Makabayan extends its deepest condolences and sympathies to the family, the loved ones, and the Filipino people on the death of Jorge “Ka Oris” Madlos along with his aide Eighfel “Ka Pika” Dela Peña.

The fascist armed forces at the helm of Maj. Gen. Romeo Brawner Jr., commander of the 4th Infantry Division (4ID) murdered the venerated commander of the armed resistance on October 29 in Impasug-on in Bukidnon. Ka Oris was on his way to seek medical treatment, contrary to what Brawner has been spouting that an encounter occurred between state forces and the New People’s Army.

Hours later, the AFP conducted aerial strikes in the mountains of Barangay Dumalaguing, Impasug-ong, Bukidnon to hide the fact of their crimes. Brawner brazenly spewed lies in front of the media and bragged Ka Oris’s death as a trophy for Duterte’s terror campaign.

Ka Oris is an exemplar to the young cadres of the Party and of the thousands of young Filipinos who courageously took up the duty to carry forward the national democratic revolution and bring an end to centuries of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucratic capitalism.

He started as a student activist in the Central Mindanao University during the 1960s, at a time where militant student activism has been erupting around the country in retaliation to Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship. Ka Oris and his fellow youth took up arms and organized themselves to establish one of the earliest units of the Maoist guerillas.

Ka Oris’s death will be held with honor everywhere in the country and a commitment from all revolutionary forces to bring the fascist dictatorship of Rodrigo Duterte to its knees and grant victories to the Filipino people. The terror of the Duterte regime, like all reactionary paper tigers, will crumble at the upsurge of the people’s resistance. In the words of Ka Oris, “[f]ascism begets resistance, and state terrorism and martial law was and will remain the number one recruiter of revolutionaries among the youth”

As what they shouted during FQS, “Sagot sa martial law, digmang bayan!”, so does our youth chant now, “Sagot sa Duterterorismo, digmang bayan!”, “Duterterorista, patalsikin, ngayon na!”, “Kabataan, paglingkuran ang sambayanan, sumapi sa Bagong Hukbong Bayan!” -The FQS changed my life by Ka Oris