Lilette Fatima Raquel, 30, was petite, always giggling, (smiling even in her death) but described as an inquisitive and serious student who kept on asking questions and was not contented with classroom lessons: she learned more in the streets and with the people she would serve up to her last breath.

BY LYN V. RAMO
Northern Dispatch
Posted by Bulatlat
Vol. VII, No. 41, November 18-24, 2007

Lilette Fatima Raquel, 30, was petite, always giggling, (smiling even in her death) but described as an inquisitive and serious student who kept on asking questions and was not contented with classroom lessons: she learned more in the streets and with the people she would serve up to her last breath, according to one of her friends during the memorial services in Baguio City.

Raquel finished Journalism at the University of the Philippines (UP) College Baguio in 1999. As a student, Raquel helped organize many student groups and societies, at the same time led basic masses integration trips to the communities of miners, urban poor and rural folk.

She joined the NPA in February this year, after serving the youth and students for more than 10 years.

A thoughtful sister, obedient daughter

Ate Lilette to three younger brothers, she is also a big sister to a lot of youngsters she has touched with her advice and guidance.

One of her brothers, Carlo, who missed her during his wedding two weeks before her untimely death, said Lilette would always surprise the family with many little things every time she visited their Aparri home.

“Lagi naming inaabangan kung ano ang gagawin ni Ate sa bahay” (We always looked forward to what she would do in the house), Carlo told reporters during the wake in Baguio City earlier this month. “She loved to cook, and was always thoughtful and caring to the family.”

Carlo admitted into having apprehensions that Lilette had joined the New People’s Army (NPA) with her being cautious about their security. He said Lilette would tell him she could not just leave her work because she is in a very far place.

Both former teachers, her parents would remember Lilette as an obedient and responsible daughter.

A propagandist, organizer, student mass leader

“Lilette would write compelling statements that would explain the student position on many issues confronting them,” said one of her colleagues in the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP), which Lilette helped strengthen when she was still in UP College Baguio.

She served not only the students of Cordillera but also those in the Ilocos region, another student leader recalled.

She would speak in several student forums clarifying issues and explaining to students the broader Philippine context as she had earlier read and analyzed.

“One of the finest daughters of the Filipino people”

The NPA Agustin Begnalen Command (ABC) confirmed that Raquel “died Oct. 28 due to multiple gunshot wounds she earlier sustained during an earlier gun battle with alleged bodyguards of Benwaren warlord family in Tineg town who were reportedly acting as security forces for operating troops of the 41st Infantry Battalion.”

The gun battle occurred at Sitio (sub-village) Vera, Barangay (village) Alaoa-Tapayen in Tineg, Abra shortly before midnight Oct. 26.

“The revolutionary movement in Abra, and in the entire Ilocos-Cordillera, mourns the death of one of the finest daughters of the Filipino people, “ABC Spokesperson Diego Wadagan said of Raquel’s demise. A native of Cagayan Valley, she was a member of the Executive Committee-Secretariat of a Guerilla Front Committee (Komiteng Larangang Gerilya) and a regular member of the Abra Provincial Party Committee, according to Wadagan.

Transcending female traditonal roles, she joined the NPA and bannered armed revolutionary struggle in the tradition of Tandang Sora, Gabriela Silang, Lorena Barros, Jingjing Cariño and other great women revolutionary martyrs,” the NPA-ABC said. “From a petty-bourgeois intellectual, Ka Trina developed into a selfless proletarian revolutionary.”

“Due to her positive qualities and perseverance, Ka Trina quickly made her way into the ranks of the revolutionary leaders in Abra,” Wadagan said in the ABC statement sent to media. He further said she was a relatively well-rounded officer, considering her short stint in the NPA, becoming a medic, supply, finance and a political officer, later becoming a member of the Yunit Komand.

“Ka Trina’s death is a great loss to the revolutionary movement,” Wadagan said.

Raquel was accorded fitting memorial rites by her former colleagues, friends and family in Baguio City and Aparri Cagayan, where she was interred Nov. 2. Northern Dispatch / Posted by (Bulatlat.com)

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