Philippines - Tribute to Maria Eleanor P. Dandoy: Revolutionary cadre, true leader (1969-2012)

Maria Eleanor P. Dandoy (29 October 1969 - 12 June 2012) was laid to rest Saturday, 16 June 2012. Following is the tribute by the Communist Party of the Philippines read during the Luksang Parangal on Friday.
Regional Party Committee
CPP Southern Mindanao Region

Tribute to Maria Eleanor P. Dandoy: Revolutionary cadre, true leader (1969-2012)

The Regional party committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Southern Mindanao region gives its highest tribute to comrade Maria Eleanor P. Dandoy, revolutionary leader and cadre, who passed away last 12 June 2012 after 11 days of suffering complications from lupus erythematosus, an immune system disease.
To comrades in the Southern Mindanao Regional Party Committee and the Regional Committee on Towns and Cities or RCTC, Maria Eleanor, or Ka Milet, left a legacy of strong commitment, revolutionary fervor and perseverance in the face of hard struggle.
Tenacious and daring, Ka Milet exemplified this brand of leadership in the urban party committee, from her foray with comrades in the youth and students sector, workers in Davao region, her role in the recovery of Davao del Norte territory, and her leadership in Davao city urban committee and the RCTC. Over the more than two decades of revolutionary struggle as full-time Party cadre, Ka Milet was part of the revival of the urban mass movement.
Her social awakening was early. Politics sprang first as an offshoot of positive influence by close relatives who figured prominently during the early 1980s in the anti-fascist struggle against the US-Marcos dictatorship.
As a teenager of high school age, she already quite understood the justness of the struggle of the workers, urban poor, women and youth. At that time, the urban district in which her family residence was located was generally known to be one of the strongholds of social revolution in Davao City. Her sympathies for the oppressed were aroused when she had to bring food and care for her uncle, a political detainee.
She found herself formally involved in the revolutionary struggle in a period where the authoritarian regime, at the behest of US Imperialism, was in a brutal rampage against the Filipino people. And when the open fascist rule was in death throes, her political life blossomed. It came as no surprise that in no time, she saw herself in the arms of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM, Patriotic Youth) and eventually, the Communist Party of the Philippines. Ka Milet embraced the revolutionary cause firmly from then on.
In college at the Ateneo De Davao University, she studied Economics and graduated as an average student. But far more important was that beyond the confines of bourgeois academics, she fully grasped the political economy of Philippine society, the need for concrete action and the correct path to social transformation.  In such pursuits, she did an outstanding political work among the studentry and the masses. She did EDs (political education work) and joined rallies, albeit briefly, on purpose.  Because she devoted more time -- in the background, so to speak -- in the environs of cadre work.
An outstanding cadre she came to be. In the provinces and in the cities, and in the specific sectors of assignment from one time to another, she developed into a fine political partisan, driven by a liberating and great historical purpose, armed with passion and equipped with brilliant mass movement skills.
Ka Milet was never one to back down in healthy debates and intra-Party discussions. She was at the forefront of internal struggles, seeking correct ideas and the right policy, sifting truth from the untruth, and resolving problems that greatly affect the ideological, political and organizational life of the Party.In striving to reverse temporary setbacks and advance the urban mass movement, Ka Milet took the conscious and difficult task of being a rabble-rouser, unafraid to identify mistakes and learn from criticism and self-criticism.  She spoke what some colleagues dared not speak and criticized fairly and accepted criticism wholeheartedly.
And adding to her character was that she was a loving mother and wife, a caring daughter and sister, and a kind friend.
She would give sound advice to comrades on revolutionary motherhood, even as she herself expressed the tremendous balancing act of being both mother and cadre during the two difficult periods of her personal life -- in the mid1990s when she and her husband had to evade severe security threats, and in the last five years at the time of her husband’s incarceration.
To her husband, she was a revolutionary partner, who had to make hard decisions and sacrifice, whose sincerity to comrades and to the organization had to take primacy over their married life. In recovering Davao del Norte territory, engaging in the open peasant mass movement and guerilla bases support in the 1990s, Ka Milet had to contend with her young family, a husband who found difficulties in adjusting to mainstream life after a long stint with the New People’s Army, and children who found it hard to get to used to a string of safe houses. It was a life on the run for Ka Milet and her family.
To her brother, Ka Milet was the sister who gave both political advice and genuine care to nieces and nephews, to siblings and to her mother in their close knit family.
In the difficult life of revolutionary struggle, Ka Milet was firm and gentle, sturdy and stable…a true leader, a dear comrade.
Her oftentimes strict demeanor have provoked many colleagues and comrades, but her strong-willed disposition have tempered through the years, in the same vein as she and comrades have strived to achieve both political and organizational maturity and greater Party unity.
As we bid her farewell, we execute our collective salute to Ka Milet and pin another medal of greatness in our common memory for her worthy attributes and weighty contributions to the people’s struggle.
(Sgd.) SIEGFRIED M. RED
Secretary, Southern Mindanao Regional Party Committee