ALIPATO:
A Tribute to the late Alexander Martin Remollino
A Tribute to the late Alexander Martin Remollino
This blog pay tribute to the late journalist, poet, and activist Alexander Martin Remollino after his death last September 3, 2010 with the age of 33 at the Philippine General Hospital after a courageous fight against pneumonia and a lung infection.
His death somehow may likely for him to be a part of the pantheon of progressive writers from Marcelo H. Del Pilar, Emilio Jacinto, Antonio Luna, Crisanto Evangelista, Antonio Zumel, and others who contributed their own selves, their talent in the service of the people and its yearing for social change. Through him also, like his ALIPATO somehow spread throughout the nation like wildfire-of his poems, his writeups, his articles venting realism, of socially-related causes, of yearning for social change that few journalists and media practitioners in the mass media do so.
However,
He, aside from being a writer in the alternative media, really supported the peoples cause through action. As he, himself left Bulatlat, an alternative media source centre last February and went on to work for the mass organization Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan). There, he used his writing skills, molded from his IBON and Bulatlat days to help Bayan, as an organization serving the people, amplify its positions on the burning issues of the day and even took on the task of speaking, criticizing objectively about these.
He continued serving even as his health began to deteriorate, as according to Bulatlat, it said:
"He was later diagnosed as a diabetic; his vital organs had been so severely damaged he ended up at the ICU — Alex continued to perform the tasks assigned to him. To the very end, he remained a writer for the people. To the very end, he never wavered in his commitment to serve them."
He may have endured the illness, the creeping pain around his body, yet he insist in serving the people, like Mao's writeup, his sacrifice for the people's well being is heavier than the Tai mountains, while those who serve the enemy is lighter than a feather.
Again,
On behalf of this blogsite, we offer condolences to Alexander Martin Remolino. But despite the sadness and grief, we must continue the struggle for progressive journalism and social change.
