Human rights workers offer flowers to NDFP peace consultants Ma. Coronacion Araneta Bocala, Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria who were killed in the month of August, International Humanitarian Law month, at their alma mater, the University of the Philippines. (Photo by Lito Ocampo/Kodao)
The family of National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant Maria Concepcion Araneta-Bocala has acknowledged her demise, listing the date of her death as August 15 that coincides with the Philippine Army’s claim she was among those killed in Calinog, Iloilo.
In a Facebook post, Bocala’s survivors said they plan on holding a public wake for the revolutionary and peace negotiator on September 11 to 13 in Roxas City, Capiz.
Her family’s announcement ended speculations the remains the Philippine Army said were Bocala’s may not be her given the difficulty of visually identifying them.
The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) earlier announced that Bocala’s family is planning on deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) testing to make sure it was indeed the legendary revolutionary leader who died, along with several others in a series of military operations in central Panay since August 5.
The CPP said Bocala’s remains and fellow revolutionary leaders Rewilmar Torrato, Vicente Hinojale have been desecrated by the military.
“The manner with which the remains have been handled, and how families are being given a hard time, harassed and intimidated by the AFP, speak of their low regard for international humanitarian law (IHL), which specifies how remains of fallen combatants should be handled with dignity and respect,” CPP chief information officer Marco Valbuena said.
Bocala was last publicly seen attending formal peace negotiations between the Government of the Republic of the Philippines and the NDFP in Norway, Italy and The Netherlands in 2016 and 2017.
Along with fellow NDFP peace consultants, Bocala was again forced underground when former president Rodrigo Duterte unleashed a total war policy against the CPP, New People’s Army (NPA) and the NDFP since mid-2017.
She would have turned 74 years old tomorrow, August 26, also National Heroes’ Day.
Unexpected revolutionary
Born to a rich, landowning family in Negros Occidental, very few expected Bocala to live the life she had—a top-level leader of revolutionary groups in the Philippines.
The fifth of 10 siblings, she was part of the rich Araneta clan that included Judy Araneta-Roxas, mother of former senator and once presidential aspirant Manuel “Mar” Roxas II.
Those who knew her in childhood expected her to live the life Negrense hacienderos are known for: comfortable, affluent, economically and politically powerful. But Concha (her nickname) broke molds early.
Despite being enrolled at convent school Assumption Iloilo from grade school where decorum was premium, vivacious Concha sometimes got into trouble. Her father was once summoned to the school because of some mischief. She was also reprimanded for wearing earrings and some jewelry, prohibited in all convent schools across the country. Decades later, Concha displayed her old effervescence by wearing the most colorful dresses, hairstyle and earrings at peace negotiations in Europe.
Still, Concha was allowed to finish her secondary education at the strict school, topping the editorial examinations for the student paper in her junior year and graduating valedictorian of the Class of 19
Bocala told Kodao in 2016 that her father wanted her to take a business or other course that would allow her to enroll later at a law school. But because her editorship was denied in her junior year, it made her intent on taking up journalism. Unsurprisingly, she went against her father’s wishes when she passed the University of the Philippines entrance examinations and took up mass communications.
In her first years at UP, Bocala was busy socializing and attending parties and jam sessions. But the rich and spirited colegiala was not oblivious to social injustices around her. She was also opposed to the US’s imperialist aggression in Vietnam that was using the Philippines as one of its staging points.
Concha joined the Samahan ng Demokratikong Kabataan and suffered her first arrest in Manila on September 16, 1972, mere five days before Ferdinand Marcos Sr. declared martial law.
Securing temporary freedom three days later, Concha jumped bail and later joined the NPA after walking out the prison’s gates.
Dying in the mountains
Concha died in the mountains, close to communities of farmers and the indigenous Tumanduk of Panay Island she served for five decades.
Her revolutionary activities made her a marked person by the military. In 1979, she suffered her second arrest and imprisonment in Talisay, Negros Occidental. She had just given birth then to her first child with first husband Pablito Araneta. She was subjected to sleep and food deprivation despite her condition. The next year, Bocala and seven other political detainees escaped from Camp Martin Delgado in Iloilo City by climbing through the ceiling of their stockade.
When Marcos was ousted in 1986, Bocala surfaced as one of the leaders of the NDF in Panay who met with then President Corazon Aquino at her alma mater Assumption Iloilo. But after militarists in Aquino’s government sabotaged the peace negotiations, Bocala again went underground but was recaptured in April 1987 in her parents’ house in Jaro District in Iloilo City.
Concha returned to underground life when she regained her freedom. She was arrested for the fourth and last time in August 2015.
After 13 months, in August 2016, she was freed to allow her to join the peace negotiations in Europe.
‘Will be stubbornly missed’
Bocala’s second husband and fellow revolutionary martyr Reynaldo was also killed by the military in Panay Island last May 2021. Concha said her life-long partner and partner Reynaldo and his companion Willy Arguelles were “unarmed and traitorously and brutally murdered by the fascist mercenaries of the tyrant Duterte.”
In a Facebook post, one of Concha and Reynaldo’s four children said he will stubbornly miss their mother.
The son recalled that on his ninth birthday, Concha gave him a card with the words: “Like the flutter of leaves and wings, let your spirit be restless until you find freedom.”
He said their mother’s passion inspired and her love melted him. “I loved hugging you, laughing with you, and listening, mesmerized by your stories and adventures. I drank it all in, knowing that the day would end, and who knew when I would see you again?” he wrote.
The son described her mother as a “fiery, stubborn, hard-headed, passionate, brave, daring, inspiring, funny, gentle, and caring” person. “She did not mind hardship, hunger, thirst, sacrifices, or the dangers,” he recalled.
It is not only in her family that Concha is as highly regarded. In her five decades as a revolutionary, she has become one of the most storied leaders of the underground movement in the country. The military itself said the dimunitive guerilla served as the CPP’s top leader in Panay Island with about a PhP8 million bounty for her capture.
But Concha always tried to downplay her luminance. “[N]obody is indispensable and there will always be leaders to take over our work,” she said in a 2016 feature on her by the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
War crime victims
Last August 24, Concha and fellow UP alumni and peace negotiators Benito Tiamzon and Wilma Austria were honored at their alma mater. Dozens of human rights defenders said the three were victims of international humanitarian law (IHL) violations on the month when IHL is celebrated worldwide.
Like Concha, the couple Tiamzon and Austria were released to join the peace negotiations in Europe in August 2016. The couple were brutally killed on August 21, 2021 off Samar Island while Concha herself was killed last August 15.
The group Hustisya said the three, along with other martyrs, should also be remembered tomorrow, National Heroes Day, for laying their lives in serving the people. | via Kodao Productions
This article From heiress to revolutionary martyr: Family acknowledges Concha’s demise was originally published in Kodao Productions.
