Former Rebel Slams Kabataan Rep. Renee Co: “Behind the façade of modest living lies the CPP’s laundering machine”

Former rebel, Arian Jane Ramos, who once served as chairperson of Gabriela-UP Mindanao and later secretary of NPA Guerrilla Front 55, has issued a statement against Kabataan Party-list Representative Renee Co following reports about the lawmaker’s low net worth.

According to an ABS-CBN News report dated October 21, Co still lives with her parents and declared only ₱280,000 in assets in her latest Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Net Worth (SALN).

In a Facebook post that has since circulated online, Ramos criticized what she described as the “myth” of modesty surrounding Makabayan bloc lawmakers

“Behind Renee Co’s low SALN lies the CPP’s laundering machine. We are not buying the myth of Makabayan lawmakers as martyrs of the minimum wage,” Ramos wrote.

She explained that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) operates under a structured financial system that governs the resources of its members, including those holding public office. Citing Article XI: Party Finances and Resources of the Constitution and Program of the Communist Party of the Philippines (2016), Ramos pointed out that the Party sustains itself through “membership fees, monthly dues, productive undertakings, special assessments, shares in income and inheritance, unconditional contributions, and fundraising campaigns.”

Ramos further highlighted Section 5 of the same provision, which states that “Party members who hold positions made possible by the Party shall receive an amount determined by the Party according to regulations and the necessities of the members and their family dependents.”

“Renee Co’s position as a partylist representative is not merely a public post. It is a strategic placement by the Communist Party of the Philippines,” Ramos asserted. She added that Co’s low SALN “is not proof of humility, but a symptom of the CPP’s centralized financial system.”

According to Ramos, a significant portion of Co’s congressional salary and benefits is likely remitted to the Party, which then redistributes funds based on internal regulations. “The money does not vanish into thin air. It flows upward, consolidating Party resources, and fuels the same underground machinery that wages a protracted people’s war against the State,” she said.

Ramos also denounced what she described as the romanticization of “revolutionary austerity” by leftist lawmakers.

“This is not 1871 Paris, and they are not revolutionaries in red caps storming the barricades. This is the Philippines in 2025, a democratic republic where elected officials are bound by transparency and accountability, not by the dictates of a clandestine Party,” she added.

In closing, Ramos challenged Co and other Makabayan representatives to be forthright about their ties to the CPP.

“If they are proud to follow the CPP’s financial doctrine, then they should have the courage to admit it in public, instead of hiding behind fairy tales of workers’ wages and revolutionary romanticism.”