Filemon Lagman
This article needs additional citations for verification. (March 2024) |
"Ka Popoy" Lagman | |
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Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) , Kapatiran ng mga Pangulo ng Unyon sa Pilipinas (KPUP) | |
Filemon Castelar Lagman (March 17, 1953 – February 6, 2001), popularly known as Ka Popoy, was a revolutionary
Personal life
Filemon Castelar Lagman was born to Pedro Eduardo Lagman, Jr. (February 14, 1919-March 9, 2006) and Cecilia Castellar-Lagman (February 1, 1920-August 13, 2012). He grew up in Caloocan. He was a track and field athlete of Caloocan High School.
Filemon's first wife was Dodi Garduce, while his second wife was Bobbie Jopson (sister of martial law dissident Edgar Jopson). His brother is current Albay congressman Edcel Lagman.
Activism
Lagman's political views started to manifest during his early high school days when he frequently argued with teachers who did not share his ideas. During the First Quarter Storm, he was a member of Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (Democratic Association of the Youth) in the 1970s. After only a year at the University of the Philippines, he decided to go underground and do full-time organizing work in the factories and urban poor communities in the northern sector of Metro Manila. When martial law was declared on 21 September 1972, Lagman established the first network of the underground revolutionary movement in Navotas. He organized, along with his comrades, the labor unions in factories and other work sites, launched mass mobilizations, developed a political mass base among workers and recruited more party members for the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
Ka Popoy was elected Secretary of the Manila-Rizal Regional Party Committee of the CPP in the mid-1970s and spearheaded the broad formation which challenged the Marcos dictatorship in the 1978 Batasang Pambansa elections. The Central Committee of the CPP admonished Ka Popoy and the whole regional committee for advocating participation in the elections because it ran counter to the party's call to head to the countryside to wage armed struggle against the dictatorship. Ka Popoy was only able to return at the helm of the Manila-Rizal Regional Party Committee after the People Power Revolution in 1986. Despite his differences with the central leadership, Ka Popoy continued to strengthen revolutionary work in the capital.
At the height of the CPP split, Lagman wrote the biggest critique on CPP founding chair Jose Maria Sison's book Philippine Society and Revolution—the Counter-theses[2][3] composed of Counter-Thesis 1 (PSR: A Semi-feudal Alibi for Protracted War, PPDR: Class Line vs. Mass Line and PPW: A New-Type Revolution of the Wrong Type) and Counter-Thesis 2 (On the Reorientation of the Party Work and the Reorganization of the Party Machinery). Lagman argued in his critique that Philippine society was capitalist in a backward and underdeveloped way, rather than being semi-feudal and semi-colonial. Lagman thus posited that a workers-led revolution must be waged to dismantle capitalism, instead of a protracted people's war from the countryside.
In 1991, he split with the CPP to form
Death
Lagman was ambushed and shot to death by two unknown assassins on the afternoon of 6 February 2001, at the east-side steps of the
His assassination is speculated to have been carried out by a pro-Estrada faction of the military, aiming to destabilize the newly formed Arroyo government.[5] Further investigation by the police revealed that the assassins and the culprits may have come from the Revolutionary Proletarian Army-Alex Boncayao Brigade, another "rejectionist" faction of the CPP.[6] The perpetrators were never caught.[7] In July 2007, the Quezon City Prosecutor's Office decided to drop the case on eight suspected communist assassins since the witnesses were unable to attend the preliminary investigations.[6]
References
- ^ Sabangan, Annie Ruth C.; Mio Cusi; Ric Puod (2003-12-17). "Rebels conducted bloody purges to rid movement of 'spies'". The Manila Times. Archived from the original on 2008-04-02. Retrieved 2008-09-27.
- ^ Guidote, Caridad. The Intellectuals and the Problems of Development in the Philippines. 1973.
- ^ Amado Guerrero (1970). Philippine Society and Revolution. Revolutionary School of Mao Tsetung Thought.
- ISBN 971-08-6375-4. Retrieved 2008-09-27.
- Green Left Weekly. Archived from the originalon July 24, 2005. Retrieved October 1, 2021.
- ^ a b Ramos, Marlon (2008-07-21). "Prosecutor drops labor leader Popoy Lagman's slay case". Philippine Daily Inquirer. Archived from the original on 2008-10-05. Retrieved 2008-09-27.
- ^ House of Representatives of the Philippines (2008-02-06). "House of Representatives - Journal of the House". House of Representatives of the Philippines. Archived from the original on 2011-06-04. Retrieved 2008-09-27.
External links
- (in English) Filemon 'Ka Popoy' Lagman Archive at Marxists Internet Archive
- (in English) Who is Ka Popoy Lagman? (from the official Labour Party website)