The melody of the ballad “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” played on a piano, welcomed a large crowd to the Asian Center auditorium at the University of the Philippines Diliman for a tribute to Luis Jalandoni, the ex-priest and former chief peace negotiator for communist rebels who died in exile in the Netherlands on June 7.

The underground movement has a number of both melancholic and militant music for such an occasion, but Teddy Casiño, who hosted along with Prof. Sarah Raymundo the June 16 gathering organized by Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), explained that it was Jalandoni’s favorite song.

It was just as well, as the Simon & Garfunkel 1970 hit could serve as the theme song for Jalandoni’s journey from his childhood and priesthood in the Negros sugar lands to his struggles as a political refugee for more than half his life in the Dutch city of Utrecht, where he died a day after suffering a massive stroke.

At the program, more than a dozen personalities and organizations, including the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the underground Christians for National Liberation he helped establish, praised Jalandoni’s legacy of selfless service to the poor, first as an activist priest and later as a full-fledged revolutionary who embraced Marxism after abandoning his birthright as a scion of the Negros landowning class.

They could have taken some of the lyrics from the song—“I’m on your side, oh, when times get rough/ and friends just can’t be found/ like a bridge over troubled water/ I will lay me down”—to describe his self-sacrifice. 

‘Ka Louie’

In the 1970s, Father Louie of Negros became the popular “Ka Louie” as he continued his work as the director of the Bacolod diocese social action center where he was appointed as the “right hand” of Negros Bishop Antonio Fortich, one of the country’s progressive churchmen at the time.

Frank Fernandez, also a former priest in Negros, said Jalandoni was already a well-known activist priest when he entered the Sacred Heart Seminary in Bacolod City in the mid-1960s.

Fernandez, now a political prisoner at the Negros Occidental District Jail, said in a statement read for him by film director Joel Lamangan that Jalandoni held a deep belief that “a good priest loves and serves the poor.”

“Just like the examples shown by Jesus Christ, his words became a challenge to me,” Fernandez said. He said he last saw Jalandoni in the early 1970s delivering a lecture to priests and seminarians on Jose Maria Sison’s book, Philippine Society and Revolution, “which gave a comprehensive and scientific context” to the condition of the Filipino people and the direction of their struggles.

Jalandoni himself said in an old video interview shown during the program that in 1969–1972, the struggles of the sugar workers became “very intense,” as did the human rights violations against them, prompting his shift from his priestly duties.

He said he began “moving away from the sacraments” as he paid urgent attention to the workers and peasants of Negros.

Jalandoni and his future wife, Coni Ledesma, a former nun, were arrested in September 1973 and separately released about a year later. He formally left the priesthood in 1974 and they were married in December of that year by then Cardinal Jaime Sin.

The CPP assigned the couple to conduct “international work” in 1976. They and their only son left the country clandestinely and separately and met up in Dublin, Ireland. They later moved to Holland where they set up the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) office in Utrecht.

From Utrecht, Juliet de Lima, widow of CPP founding chair Sison and who now chairs the NDFP negotiating panel, said the party was impressed by Jalandoni and his wife, “not only with their seriousness and dedication but also with their imagination, creativity and determination to conduct their revolutionary work.”

“That was the start of our long-time collaboration in advancing the revolutionary movement,” De Lima said. She said Jalandoni provided funds for the rebel leadership and gave money for the “first seven rifles to start the armed movement in the Cordilleras.”

De Lima said they last saw Jalandoni and Ledesma somewhere in Mexico, Pampanga, before the couple left the country, and were reunited with them in January 1987 in the Netherlands.

‘A revolutionary’

After the enactment of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) of 2020, Jalandoni, Sison and several other CPP and New People’s Army leaders were designated as terrorists by the ATA council.

But Bayan chair emeritus Carol Araullo rejected the terrorist tag on Jalandoni. “Yes, Ka Louie held a high position in the NDFP and yes, he was a communist, a Marxist, but he was not a terrorist. He was a revolutionary,” she said.

Araullo said the mantra of Jalandoni et al. was “to serve the people, and therefore it was not part of the revolution’s practice to intentionally harm the people.”

As the international face of the Philippine revolution, Jalandoni undertook “proto-diplomatic” work, establishing ties with other revolutionary movements and progressive groups abroad, according to Rey Casambre, a former consultant to the NDFP in the peace talks that were terminated by then President Rodrigo Duterte in 2017.

In a videotaped message, Sen. Loren Legarda said Jalandoni was “the face of hope” for peace in one of the longest-running insurgencies in the world. She lauded him for his “exceptional convergence of faith, devotion and steadfastness.”

Legarda said Jalandoni left a reminder to Filipinos still trying to find peace: “Do not fear difficult questions. Do not avoid weighty matters. Do not be discouraged while serving the people. Instead, let us enrich meaningful dialogue, oppose with respect, and act responsibly for the good of our country.”

Elizabeth Slattum, who was the representative of the Royal Norwegian Government which acted as the third-party facilitator in the peace talks, said in a video message that she remembered Jalandoni as “such a kind soul” who always smiled and had a good sense of humor who played a major role in providing a “positive atmosphere” for the talks.

“The way you remember Louie is exclusively positive, at least for me,” Slattum said. “It was impossible for the government delegation to be upset with him. It was just not possible to not be charmed by him.”

Richard Lobo, chargé d’affaires of Venezuela’s embassy in Manila, who was invited to the program, said the late peace negotiator visited his country during an international forum “to raise the voice of the Global South” in 2018.

He said Jalandoni was an “example of the tireless spirit of the new revolutionary man, clear in his ideas of freedom and independence” and willing to continue the political struggle “for the benefit of future generations.” 

“His political legacy will remain with us, both in the Philippines and every corner of the planet,” Lobo said.

‘Only precise words’

Former government peace panel member Hernani Braganza said Jalandoni was “very careful” across the negotiating table. “For Tito Louie, there are no wasted words, only precise words. There is no joking around, only serious smiles,” he said.

If the negotiations were to resume, Braganza said, “there should be no terms of surrender because [then the proceedings would not be] peace talks.” 

He added: “Learn from the past, improve on the past then move on, because the problems of Philippine society have not changed, but the negotiating strategy and tactics possibly could change to attain peace.” 

So far, no new talks have been announced by Malacañang. But there was a glimmer of hope when the two sides issued the Oslo Joint Statement on Nov. 23, 2024, possibly one of the last official documents that Jalandoni signed as senior adviser to the NDFP before his death.

In that statement, the parties said they agree to “come up with a framework that sets the priorities for the peace negotiations” and to “a principled and peaceful resolution of the armed conflict.”

It was also signed by De Lima and Ledesma. The signatories for the government were Presidential Adviser on Peace, Reconciliation and Unity Carlito Galvez Jr. and Special Assistant to the President Antonio Ernesto Lagdameo. But until Jalandoni’s death, no firm plans for the next step have been announced.

Araullo said negotiating peace is one of the ways that the NDFP is seeking to achieve its goals. “This is not a surrender of the revolutionary principles and programs because if there are significant reforms and the demands of the people could be fought for and achieved through peace negotiations, why not?” she said, adding that the purpose is to resolve the root causes of the armed struggle to achieve justice and lasting peace. 

A highlight of the tribute was the stirring performance of the Simon & Garfunkel ballad by Ice Seguerra, who was among those who met with Jalandoni and other NDFP members during the talks held in Norway before these were scuttled on Duterte’s orders.

To close the program, the audience made up mostly of graying former comrades and friends of Jalandoni as well as young activists rose with fists held aloft to sing the local version of the revolutionary anthem, “The Internationale.”

Vincent Sanchez, a 21-year-old economics major, came to watch and stayed for the entire three-hour program to learn about Jalandoni’s life and times.

Sanchez said that as young people, “we are getting inspiration from the generation not only of Ka Louie but also of other activists during martial law…during those perilous times.” He said he deeply appreciated that many “elderly activists” give advice to the younger ones instead of “bragging about what they did back in the day.”

What struck him most about Jalandoni was the man’s innate empathy for other people “as a person, even before he became an activist, communist, or whatever,” Sanchez said.

“You don’t need to be an activist to understand that you need to be concerned about the welfare of the people, the farmers, the workers, or even your neighbor,” he said.

(The program was livestreamed on YouTube but it was taken down toward the end for unexplained reasons, according to Bayan’s Carol Araullo. Jalandoni’s wife Coni Ledesma and Juliet de Lima were watching along with others in Utrecht at the time.)