From the Philippine Daily Inquirer (Nov 3): Her own motherhood statement
“Mama PJ” was a favorite moniker her friends and fellow activists at the
University of the Philippines Los Baños gave her, probably because she had
always been maternal.
Not surprisingly, Pamela Jane Lapiz decided to live the role anew when she
left her own family to become mother to poor, distant communities in Quezon.
Lapiz was 29 when she joined the New People’s Army, and 45 when she perished
in an encounter between the Philippine Army and the communist rebels in Lopez,
Quezon in April this year.... Lapiz met her husband in her freshman year. “It was the height of protests
against tuition fee increases and PJ was among those very active in the
campaign,” the husband, also an activist in college, recalled. The two fell in love almost at the same time that they went underground as
members of the Communist Party of the Philippines.... Even with a child to raise, Lapiz and her husband continued to work with
non-government organizations. She joined a peasant group, while he organized
trade unions. In 1988, the two went back to school to reorganize the underground
youth group Kabataang Makabayan.... Lapiz had a second daughter in 1992. In 1996, she decided to join the armed rebel group....
http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/74230/her-own-motherhood-statement
A sad story but one that demonstrates the blurred relatonships between legal front groups and the clandestine NPA insurgent organization. Lapiz appears to have been recruited at the University of the Philippines where she and her husband were "activists." They may have been members of the League of Filipino Students (LFS)or other student fronts. They went underground as members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) but apparently worked with above ground "legal" NGOs. She joined a peasant group (perhaps the KMP-Peasant Movement of the Philippines) while the husband engaged in union organizing (possibly with the KMU-May One Movement). Then they both worked at organizing the Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth), an underground organization affilaited with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, the clandestine political wing of the CPP. She then opted to join the New People's Army (NPA), the armed wing of the CPP. The Lapiz saga clearly shows how students recruited at the UP and other universities/colleges are indoctrinated, work their way through various legal and clandestine CPP front organizations, and wind up in the boondocks with armed NPA insurgents. Her story sort of belies front group activist claims that there are no connections between their "legal" organizations and the NPA insurgents.
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