< oh man... >

   Back in my heyday as a serious activist, there are people who made a permanent imprint in my mind.  It was more of a hot branding iron to the very cortex of my brain, a hot poker dug deep into my very consciousness.  Whatever standpoint I hold now, or whatever paradigm I have shifted to, there are people who stand out on the other side that I have the highest respect for.

   Lilette Fatima Raquel was one of them.  Some people know her as "Ka Trina," but to me, she has always been my "Ate Lilet."  She got killed at a gun battle in Abra on October 26, 2007.  She was 30 years old.

   To some people I know, for me to write about Ate Lilet is nothing short of desecrating her memory: I left serious activism for something that she has always warned me not - perhaps even never - to pursue.  But Ate Lilet was one of the driving forces that have made me, at one point in my life, a good Marxist.  In those days, Ate Lilet made me carry flags and streamers and put me at the very front line of every rally.  One of my fondest memories of Ate Lilet was when an educational discussion was slated just in time for my birthday.  That was July 4, 2003: she cooked up a nice big pan of pancit bihon that we all savored... never mind that I sliced up the cabbage a bit too thick.  Or that if I was her right-hand man for every conference or caucus, I did a rather unsatisfactory job with it.

   As much as I wouldn't agree with much of what Ate Lilet taught me back in those days as I sit here now, I would agree that if there's any magnanimous soul out there who would take the patience to talk to me about how they view the world, Ate Lilet was one of them.  Ate Lilet pushed me to do things I thought I can't do: from watching polls to giving educational discussions to shout my heart out on the city streets clamoring for change.

   I bid her goodbye today... in the hopes that from this green hill where I view the world now, the red beacon of Ate Lilet may fade in sight, but never in my memory.