On January 30, Comrade Reynalde Erecre (non de guerre Amek), Central Committee member of the Communist Party of the Philippines and Negros Island Regional Committee secretary, gave his life to the Party and the revolution.

Erecre was martyred when the 94th Infantry Battalion captured, tortured, and murdered him in Sitio Apitong, Barangay Bi-ao, Binalbagan, Negros Occidental after being separated from the rest of the red fighters after a skirmish.

Erecre was born in Davao de Oro in 1974 into a lower petit-bourgeois family. He joined the New People’s Army (NPA) in 1996 after visiting an NPA camp and realizing revolution as the only solution to oppression and misery. He joined the Communist Party a year later.

Throughout the years, Erecre proved himself as an outstanding son of the people, showing his bravery, determination and leadership in numerous battles against the Old bureaucrat-landlord State. As a leader of the Party, Erecre also contributed greatly to the development of the revolutionary movement in Negros Island. “Under his leadership, the people’s army on the island carried out more vigorous tactical offensives and armed actions,” reported Ang Bayan, the official publication of the CPP.

Despite this heavy loss, the Party has pledged to turn grief into strength and to continue the National Democratic Revolution until final victory.

“So long as the fundamental problems of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism persist, many Negrosanons will wage revolutionary struggle to its completion and to total victory,” Ang Bayan quoted the NPA–Negros Island spokesperson Maoche Legislador in saying.

“The blood shed by Ka (comrade) Amek further nourished the soil of the revolution, from which new sons and daughters of the people will emerge to continue the unfinished revolution,” said the Central Committee of the CPP in a statement.