EDITORIAL | Dignity

The special report on former rebels in Samar tells hard, specific truths. Housing that hasn’t materialized. Livelihoods that start and stall. Families divided by distance and danger. It captures what reintegration really looks like: a long road with switchbacks, not a ribbon-cutting. 

But one crucial question was left unasked: sa lahat ng hirap na ito—nagsisisi ba kayo na iniwan ang armadong pakikibaka? It matters, because we have never claimed that reintegration is easy—inasmuch as our former organization, the CPP-NPA-NDFP continues to use the disclaimer that waging revolution is never easy. 

What we do claim is this: choosing peace is a choice we stand by, eyes open.

As expected, our good old former organization moved in on the story like hyenas circling a wounded herd. Quick to seize scraps, quicker to twist them. Overnight, our struggles were spun as proof we are “devoid of dignity.” That is the latest insult in a long line meant to shame us back into silence. But it will not work. Dignity is not measured by how loudly the high-and-mighty Party denounces you. It is measured by how steadfastly you fight for your family, tell the truth about violence, and rebuild without a gun.

One line in the report gets it exactly right: “These stories… speak to the profound challenges of transition.” And that should be a marching order. Our government must deliver—on housing already identified, on E-CLIP that reaches the last surrendered NPA fighter, on jobs that last longer than a press release. 

Former rebels are doing our part: organizing our own people’s organizations, monitoring promised programs, and helping agencies fix what’s broken. For this, our old organization brands us “counterrevolutionary traitors” or “paid hacks.” To be sure, those words are not just insults. They are death sentences whispered into the ears of the few operators sent to “make examples” for betraying the CPP-NPA-NDFP.

It is rich—no, hypocritical—for the CPP to demean the hardships we face after laying down arms. The organization demanded unimaginable sacrifices for decades: children orphaned, bodies buried without names and far from their families, while funds raised “for communities” were used to buy weapons and munitions. Now they urge us to “live as civilians” and “maghanapbuhay sa marangal na paraan,” even as their remaining (tired, hungry) fighters scrape by with hardly anything, while the leaders live in relative comfort, far removed from the mud and misery of the frontlines.

Contrary to what the CPP-NPA-NDFP claims, former rebels did not surrender their understanding of the country’s ills. We surrendered the lie that only bullets can cure them. That is why we form federations of former rebels and help our former mass bases become legitimate people’s organizations, so we can work with the government to address the problems in land, livelihood, and services the right way. That is what our former comrades cannot forgive: that a life after and outside the armed revolution is possible. And we can still honor and uplift the poor without sacrificing them.

To call our decision “undignified” and to stick to the “national democratic line of people’s war” is to mistake cruelty for courage. Dignity is choosing your family over a future of misery, your children over your slogans, truth over mythology, and building better peace over a protracted war.