A tribute to Tony Cabardo
By Sonny Melencio
Tony Cabardo, a long-time political activist and fighter for socialism and democracy in the Philippines, died of cancer in Manila on January 19. He was 43e years old and had spent most of his life in the revolutionary movement.
He was a comrade and friend for those of us in the revolutionary movement. He was a well-loved leader of the various organisations he worked with — starting from the student movement in the early 1970s, to the mass movements in the cities, the guerilla movement in the countryside and various international organisations he came into contact with. He was an activist, a guerilla fighter and an internationalist.
There were three instances in his political life that stood out strongly for me. He was a kasama (comrade) who was intense and energetic in his political work. At an early age, even before the declaration of martial law by the Marcos dictatorship in 1972, he left us and joined the guerilla movement. He became a guerilla leader, a company commander, in the New People's Army and a model to look up to in the movement.
In the 1980s he became an alternative member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines. He was also the vice chairperson of the NPA General Command and carried out international work for the NPA.
He uncompromisingly and tirelessly built the people's movement that overthrew the Marcos dictatorship in 1986 and continued to fight the pro-capitalist, anti-people's governments of presidents Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos. He was arrested and jailed by the Aquino administration and subsequently released.
He became one of the leading critics of the Stalinist-Maoist politics of the CPP and subsequently became a leader of the Manila Rizal Regional Committee of the party, the most advanced and uncompromising of the anti-Stalinist forces of the party which led the split from the CPP in 1993. He was also a leader of the anti-Stalinist mass organisations such as Sanlakas, a broad democratic front of mass sectoral organisations.
He was a guest of the Democratic Socialist Party at the International Green Left conference held in Sydney in 1994.
Tony Cabardo was a fighter to the end. He battled liver cancer for more than a year. A few weeks before his death, he gave press interviews condemning the former general commander of the NPA, Kinatanar, who turned renegade and betrayed the movement by publicly swearing allegiance to the Ramos regime.
His death, at such a crucial stage in the development of the Philippines revolutionary movement, is a blow to us all.