The Regional Operations Command of the New People’s Army in Southern Mindanao renders revolutionary tribute to Reynante “Ka Roy” Mantos, 38, who was martyred in the course of our life-and-death struggle to advance the national democratic revolution. Ka Roy was gunned down by enemy operatives just hours after dusk of March 2, 2021 in Brgy. Malamodao, Maco, Davao de Oro.

Ka Roy’s killing in the hands of the fascists is yet another blatant extra-judicial execution marked by Duterte’s brand of impunity. He was unarmed at the time, having gone to the community in order to conduct masswork regarding anti-feudal and economic concerns raised by the masses in the area. Masses likewise decry the military’s planting of firearm and the overkill of Ka Roy, as reports confirm that he was shot at close range several times, sustaining at least 7 bullet wounds in the head, nape, ear and other parts of his face.

Ka Roy’s revolutionary life, from being a peasant activist to Red fighter, is one that has become increasingly common during Duterte’s reign of terror. In the course of championing legitimate peasant and Lumad rights, Ka Roy was red-tagged, threatened and hounded by armed state agents, which all the more steeled his resolve to become a full-time Red fighter.

Ka Roy was a homegrown mass activist in a farming and mining community in Maco town. Despite graduating from Marine Transportation course, he chose to brave the hostile waters of class confrontation as a peasant mass leader and contributed greatly to the success of several agrarian, anti-feudal, and anti-fascist campaigns in Davao de Oro province.

He was one of the leaders in the post-disaster reparation campaign against Apex Mining Company following the devastation of Typhoon Pablo in 2013. The decade-long operation of the mining company in their community greatly worsened the effect of the typhoon as the company degraded the land and water source. The campaign was a success, and resulted in the company being forced to pay for subsidies such as food and farm inputs that covered the victims’ rehabilitation and production campaign. Since 2012, he organized and led various anti-feudal mass campaigns that increased farmgate prices of farmers’ produce, reduced the costs of rice and corn milling and other post-harvest facilities and lowered usury which greatly benefited farming communities in the area.

Most notably, Ka Roy’s leadership role in the series of campaigns by agrarian reform beneficiaries in Davao del Norte, especially the successful installment of farmers in the vast tract of banana plantations land-grabbed by the Lorenzo-owned Lapanday company, put him in the cross-hairs of armed goons of the landlords and the military. With the incessant red-tagging and threats to his life, Ka Roy, like other mass activists before him, decided to continue serving the people in the Red bases while in the NPA.

Ka Roy acted as a Political Instructor in his guerrilla unit, offering his decade-long experience in mass campaigns to advance the agrarian revolution in their areas of operation. Comrades describe Ka Roy as approachable and easy to get along. The masses cherish Ka Roy’s decision to join the NPA, knowing that such selfless resolve is a mark of higher level of commitment for the oppressed and exploited peasant and Lumad masses. This is why Ka Roy’s murder is one more fascist crime they hold the US-Duterte regime accountable for.

In today’s political climate, the fascist Duterte regime’s bloodlust intensifies its crackdown on mass activists, legal organizations, and democratic forces. Ka Roy was an exemplification of the surge of activists and civilians who continue to decide to take up arms to battle Duterte’s unbridled corruption, fascism and state terrorism.

His legacy is a cautionary tale to tyrants like Duterte: when legitimate dissent is stifled, it does not cower; it fights back. His life was but one of the innumerable seeds of revolutionary fervor, while his death will make the countryside an even more fertile soil for the armed struggle.