Tributes and messages of condolences continue to be sent to the NDFP International Office and Comrade Coni Ledesma, wife of Comrade Luis “Louie” Jalandoni, who passed away last June 7 in Utrecht, The Netherlands. He was 90.
The tributes and messages, which came from Philippine allies, friends and member-organizations of the NDFP, and various international organizations, parties and groups, praised Comrade Jalandoni for his contributions to the Filipino people’s democratic revolution and the NDFP’s international work. He was recognized as a revolutionary, internationalist and stalwart of principled peace.
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) conferred its highest honors to Comrade Jalandoni for “his contributions to building and strengthening the Party and the National Democratic Front, and to waging the people’s democratic revolution, principally through armed struggle, as well as other forms of struggle, including through the peace negotiations”.
Comrade Jalandoni was one of the founders of the Christians for National Liberation (CNL), an allied organization of the NDFP. In 1977, Jalandoni was appointed NDFP chief international representative and undertook proto-diplomatic work, established relations with foreign governments, international agencies, fraternal groups, and revolutionary movements and parties worldwide and helped amplify the Philippine revolutionary movement’s aspiration for a genuinely free, democratic, prosperous, peaceful and socialist Philippines. He helped established the NDFP International Office in Utrecht and led in organizing global support for the Filipino people’s struggle against the then US-Marcos dictatorship. He played a key role in organizing the Permanent People’s Tribunal’s First Session on the Philippines in 1980, which exposed the regime’s crimes against the Filipino people and recognized the NDFP as the genuine representative of the Filipino people.
He served as the chief negotiator of the NDFP Peace Panel in talks with the reactionary Government of the Philippines (GPH) from 1989 to 2016. Since then and until his death, he was Senior Adviser of the NDFP Peace Panel. Comrade Jalandoni led the Peace Panel in the signing of significant agreements between NDFP and GRP representatives, among themThe Hague Joint Declaration of 1992, the Joint Agreement for Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, and other documents and agreements of the peace talks.
Apart from the CPP Central Committee, the NDFP National Council, and the NDFP International Office, tributes came from various commands of the New People’s Army (NPA), NDFP allied organizations, (among them the CNL, Patriotic Youth (Kabataang Makabayan, KM), Revolutionary Movement of Peasants (PKM), League of Scientists for the People (Agham), Revolutionary Organization of Filipinos Overseas (Compatriots), Makibaka (Revolutionary Women’s Organization), Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF), Lumaban (Revolutionary Organization of Lawyers), and NDFP organs of political power in different provinces in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.
Among those that initially sent tributes were parties and organizations such as the Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland, Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle (FFPS), Communist (Maoist) Party of Afghanistan, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey/Kurdistan, Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD), Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, and the Communist Party of Turkey-Marxist-Leninist (TKP-ML), the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS), and organizations from Africa, North America, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and India, to name a few.
Upon the instruction of the CPP Central Committee, units of the People’s Army assembled at the break of dawn last June 12, and performed a silent 21-gun salute in honor of Comrade Jalandoni.
Allies, friends and comrades packed the auditorium of the Daelwijk Crematorium in Utrecht last June 17 to join in the last rites and tribute to Comrade Jalandoni before he was cremated and laid to rest.