The National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas welcomes the junking of the trumped-up charges of illegal possession of firearms and explosives against elderly NDFP counsultant Esteban Manuel Jr. Manuel should be immediately released and allowed to retire comfortably with his family.

This positive outcome is a result of four years of painstaking work by his family and supporters. Before his illegal arrest in February 16, 2022 in Barangay Cambaguio, Villareal, Westen Samar, Manuel had already retired from active revolutionary work due to old age and being ill with hypertension. Despite such physical limitations, he was still able to conduct investigations into the situation of impoverished fisherfolk suffering from the effects of coastal degradation. To justify his arrest, elements of the Joint Task Force Storm of the Armed Forces of the Philippines planted him with a pistol and a hand grenade, in violation of his rights under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees or JASIG.

Manuel’s arrest in 2022 was only one of a slew of intensified attacks against retired revolutionaries in Eastern Visayas. On March 8, fascist military troops abducted retired cadre Edwin Alcid (Ka Veejo) in Barangay San Jose (Hebobollao), Catubig, Northern Samar. Fellow retirees Amado Adelantar (Ka Butil) and Maria Norie Adelantar (Ka Cedang) were then tortured and killed on March 16, in Jiabong, Western Samar while Rodrigo Mejica Lorezo (Ka Akag) and Delia Rosco Rotamula (Ka Mema) were murdered in Barangay Galutan, San Jose de Buan, Western Samar on August 7. NDFP consultants Benito Tiamzon, Wilma Austria and other Red fighters were abducted and summarily killed on August 22.

The following years under the US-Marcos regime saw no let-up in state violations of international humanitarian law. In 2025 alone, at least seven Red fighters in the region, six in Leyte, were summarily killed by fascist state troops. Retired military cadres such as Bartolome Admanan (Ka Talyo) and his wife Ka Mamay continue to be illegally detained. Hundreds of communities in the countryside are subjected to hamlets and militarization.

How the reactionary govenrment treats dissidents—branding them as “terrorists,” charging them with trumped-up cases, planting evidence against them, abducting, torturing or summarily executing them—erodes any pretension of democracy or just peace under the ruling puppet regime. The Marcos Jr regime, just like all the others before it, continues to uphold its policy of all-out war and outright refusal to address the root causes of the civil war.

Ironically, it is policy that breeds life-long revolutionaries such as Manuel. A new breed of revolutionary youth are more than ready to take up the cudgels of armed struggle so that the Filipino people may finally attain genuine democracy and liberation, and carry out socialist construction until communism is achieved.