by Mark Savela
Leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines Comrades Benito and Wilma Austria Tiamzon were tortured and killed by the old state in August of last year, the Party recently reported. The Armed Forces of the Philippines captured the leaders along with 8 of their fellow comrades. To cover up the cowardly killings—in which the comrades were beaten to death with blunt objects—the reactionary forces created a fictitious encounter in which they claimed the comrades entered a firefight from a boat which subsequently exploded. According to the Party, the comrades were traveling unarmed in a van. Reactionary governments across the world have always attempted to fabricate such encounters to make the extrajudicial murder of revolutionaries and activists seem unavoidable.
The other comrades killed were Comrade Divino (Joel Arceo), a sub-regional secretary in Eastern Visayas, along with Comrade Yen, Comrade Jaja, Comrade Matt, Comrade Ash, Comrade Delfin, Comrade Lupe, Comrade Butig, who all belonged to the guerrilla force of the central headquarters.
The revolutionary experience and sacrifices of the Tiamzons are many. Both were in their 70s and were high ranking leaders of the Communist Party when they gave their lives for the proletarians and peasants of the Philippines in the service of New Democratic Revolution as part of the world proletarian revolution. Their blood has dyed our red flag and its hue will never fade.
Comrade Benito Tiamzon began his revolutionary career as a radical student in the 1960s where he contributed his intellect to democratic newspapers and embedded himself firmly among the great masses of workers when he began organizing unions among them. It was at this time he made the lifelong commitment to join the Communist Party. A political prisoner several times over, Comrade Tiamzon’s first arrest was at the hands of the fascist dictatorship during martial law. After escaping the clutches of the reaction, the ardent Communist returned to his post among the people and never relented organizing on behalf of the Filipino masses.
Comrades Benito and Wilma were married by the Communist Party in 1973; the couple’s resolve to make revolution was only enhanced by their marriage.
Comrade Wilma Tiamzon was also a student radical of the 1960s. Drawn into democratic journalism, she joined the Communist Party and became a lifelong fighter for the people. She was arrested by the Marcos regime and released only to be arrested again in the late 1980s on trumped-up murder charges. The heroic Communist daringly escaped confinement and returned to serving the people wholeheartedly. The couple were arrested together in 2014 and held captive until 2016, when the reactionary old state released them during “peace talks” with the Party. Reaction quickly issued warrants for the couple’s arrests after it derailed and hindered the “peace talks.”
True and remarkable Communist fighters, the comrades returned to the people’s war and once again evaded detention in order to maintain their posts at the forefront of the Filipino revolution. They held their posts as Communist leaders, red fighters, and servants of the people until their death at ages 70 and 71 on August 21, 2022. The Worker expresses its solidarity to the Communist Party of the Philippines and to the Filipino masses who lost remarkable fighters for the revolution, but who gained the most heroic examples! It is with the utmost class hatred that we condemn the old state beholden to US imperialism for the killing of these comrades.
