Before She Became “Maki”: Rocha Mae Bihag’s Road From Campus Journalism to the Armed Underground

Before being known by her non de guerre “Maki,” a ranking member of the Communist Party of the Philippines - New People’s Army, Rocha Mae Mirafuentes Bihag had been a student journalist and youth organizer in Mindanao. She spoke publicly about press freedom, tuition increases, alleged human-rights violations, indigenous communities and the peace negotiations between the government and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.

Bihag was among four alleged NPA members killed during a military operation in Esperanza, Agusan del Sur, from September 10 to 12, 2026. Information from civilians led troops under the 403rd Infantry Brigade to pursue around nine armed individuals belonging to the North Central Mindanao Regional Committee’s Headquarters Force Neo. Six encounters followed, leaving four rebels dead, three surrendered and six high-powered firearms recovered. 

The fatalities included NCMRC secretary Julia Cagadas, alias “Rheda,” and Bihag, both  identified as members of the regional committee’s executive body.

But before her name appeared in an encounter report, Bihag was known a decade ago as a campus journalist and youth leader. One of those who remembered her was former rebel Manilyn Sinonta, who said she personally worked with Maki in the underground movement.

“Dili nako malimtan ang imong kaayo panahon nga nag-uban ta sa pipila ka panahon,” Sinonta wrote in a public Facebook post after learning of Bihag’s death. “I will never forget your kindness during the several times we spent together.”

Sinonta’s remembrance offered a glimpse of the person behind the political labels. She said that Bihag became a Red fighter in 2016.

Student activist

Public records trace Bihag’s earlier activism to Mindanao State University, where she was associated with the Mindanao Varsitarian, the university’s student publication. By 2014, she had been an active member of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, eventually becoming its Vice President for Mindanao. She also became the regional coordinator of Kabataan Partylist in Northern Mindanao.

In July 2014, Bihag supported calls for the resumption of peace negotiations between the government and the NDFP. She also supported the Freedom of Information bill but doubted that the Aquino administration would prioritize it.

Following the arrest of retired Maj. Gen. Jovito Palparan in 2014, Bihag argued that the arrest of one former military officer did not end extrajudicial killings and other alleged abuses. As CEGP vice president for Mindanao, she also condemned alleged human-rights violations under the Aquino administration.

In March 2016, a news report identified Bihag with the League of Filipino Students during protests against proposed tuition increases. She said student organizations had been excluded from consultations over higher school fees. She also criticized the implementation of the K–12 program and helped prepare demonstrations for the opening of classes.

To former rebels, it is no accident that Bihag’s public positions were closely aligned with the established campaigns of the national-democratic movement: opposition to United States military involvement, criticism of government counterinsurgency programs, support for peace negotiations and campaigns against tuition increases, militarization and alleged attacks on activists and journalists.

In October 2016, the Philippine Daily Inquirer published an opinion piece under the name “Rochamae M. Bihag”. Writing as CEGP vice president for Mindanao, she argued that practices associated with martial law continued through attacks on activists and restrictions on campus press freedom.

It was among the last publicly indexed writings bearing her name.

Propagandist

Sinonta’s account places Bihag’s entry into the armed movement within that same year. Her final months as a visible youth leader overlapped with the period in which she decided, or was preparing, to leave public activism for the underground.

Ram, a former cadre from a subregional command in North Central Mindanao Committee, who previously worked closely with Bihag said she continued her work as a propagandist after joining the NPA. 

“She wrote extensively for the NPA’s regional and subregional commands. She carried into the underground movement the writing and communications experience she had developed as a campus journalist and CEGP leader.”

Another former rebel, Trisha, who also worked with Bihag and shared her experience of being a former campus journalist for the CEGP before joining the NPA, said Bihag’s journey was not an accidental or isolated transition. 

Trisha described it as an example of how campus journalists recruited through legal national-democratic organizations undergo sustained ideological formation toward a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist worldview before being programmed to join the armed NPA.

“This process doesn’t begin with the sudden decision to take up arms,” Trisha said. “It is gradual. It develops through political education, issue-based campaigns, organizational discipline and the eventual acceptance of the CPP’s analysis of Philippine society and armed revolution.” 

Persistent questions

She warned that similar recruitment and ideological formation continue in campuses and universities nationwide, especially those with active campus publications aligned with CEGP.

Bihag’s journey, for Trisha and Ram, points to persistent questions about the relationship between aboveground national-democratic activism and the CPP-NPA.

“Bihag’s life, like mine,” Trisha declares, “demonstrates how one individual moved from student journalism and legal political organizing into a clandestine organization pursuing armed revolution. All while continuing propaganda work within these organizations.”

And yet, Sinonta’s remembrance preserves something that political statements and reports about the deaths of youths recruited into the armed underground sometimes overlook: before she became a name on a casualty list or venerated by her comrades as an example of heroism, Maki was a colleague remembered for her kindness. 

But that memory cannot erase the ideological and political process that took her from campus journalism into an armed movement, and eventually to the encounter in which her life ended.