Cherished and beloved family members, relatives, town mates, friends, allies and the masses whom Ka Goyo, Ka Lea and Ka Riki earnestly served:

We join your grief as we all deeply mourn the unfortunate death of beloved comrades Julius ‘Ka Goyo’ Marquez, Enniabel ‘Ka Lea’ Balunos and Maria Finela ‘Ka Riki’ Mejia in the bloodied hands of the fascist enemy. With you, our tears of love and sorrow poured out with the martyrdom of the three leaders of the revolutionary movement. And like you, we are outraged by their inhuman and brutal murder carried out Tokhang style, a typical barbaric act of the Duterte regime’s killing machine.

Ka Goyo, Ka Lea and Ka Riki died heroic deaths amidst the focused and sustained enemy attack on the Ilocos Sur guerilla front since the last quarter of 2018. While performing mass work, they were abducted and treacherously and mercilessly executed pointblank by criminal operatives of the 81st IB and 7th MIB at around 10:30 PM of February 13, 2020 in barangay Namatican, Santa Lucia, Ilocos Sur. Witnesses from the neighborhood belied military and media reports that they were killed in an encounter. No firefight ever occurred in Namatican that night of February 13. Our comrades were summarily executed by the blood-thirsty fascist troops!

The Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the Regional Operational Command (Chadli Molintas Command) of the New People’s Army (NPA) in the Ilocos-Cordillera Region give our highest salutation to the three comrades who offered their lives for the masses they so loved and cherished. We salute them for the unwavering commitment and wholehearted devotion to the cause of the people’s armed revolution that they demonstrated until their final breath. They dedicated the prime years of their lives to the Filipino people’s revolutionary struggle against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. They opted to serve the downtrodden and deprived, the oppressed and exploited masses.

In their decades of selfless service to the people, they displayed courage, humility, strong leadership, diligence in work and revolutionary optimism. They are models of steadfast perseverance in the face of trials and sacrifices and of overcoming difficulties and limitations so as to continue contributing in advancing the revolutionary movement to finally liberate the toiling masses and the country from the bonds of exploitation and oppression.

Their high sense of sacrifice and patriotism are beacons to the masses. In their youth, they willingly left behind lives of comfort to serve the people and the revolution. All three being college graduates (Ka Goyo finished BS Math, Ka Lea BS Nursing and Ka Riki BA Language & Literature), they could have pursued promising careers. Instead, they chose to live with the peasant masses in the countryside and to use their college education in teaching, organizing and mobilizing them to change their dire situation. They spent the best years and decades of their lives working and struggling with the peasants of the Ilocos provinces whom they never left even under the most brutal and incessant fascist attacks by the reactionary state’s military apparatus.. These struggles have resulted in concrete political and economic gains & benefits that have improved the welfare of the peasants. Thus, their commitment and devotion to the interests of the toiling masses earned the admiration, respect and love of the peasants.

Indeed, the deaths of Ka Goyo, Ka Lea and Ka Riki are extremely painful for us. But as ever, we have learned to turn our grief into revolutionary courage. Their memories and ideals shall always live forever. They are revolutionary heroes and martyrs worthy of our emulation. Their shining example of undying love for the masses, arduous struggle, courage in battle, and selfless sacrifice shall continue to flourish among hundreds of thousands of revolutionaries and serve as inspiration to all comrades and the masses.

We shall always remember them in every struggling peasant, in revolutionaries engaged in mass work, and in Red fighters and commanders advancing the people’s armed revolution.

Long live the shining memory of the three Ilocos heroes!