The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) extended its condolences today to the family and loved ones of Luis “Ka Louie” Jalandoni, while issuing a sharp reminder that history must not be rewritten to canonize a man who spent decades shielding and glorifying the armed communist insurgency that ravaged the Philippines.
“Even as we recognize the grief of those who knew him, we owe the Filipino people honesty. Luis Jalandoni was not a hero. He was a symbol of a violent ideology that inflicted incalculable damage on this nation,” said Undersecretary Ernesto C. Torres Jr., Executive Director of the NTF-ELCAC.
A former priest who became a senior figure in the CPP-NPA-NDF, Jalandoni styled himself as a revolutionary diplomat but remained deeply complicit in protracting armed conflict. As chief peace negotiator for the National Democratic Front (NDF), he presided over dialogues that masqueraded as peacemaking, while the NPA continued to recruit minors, ambush state forces, and extort poor communities.
“These so-called peace talks were not bridges to peace. They were Trojan horses—used to buy time, gain legitimacy, and give cover to insurgent operations. Jalandoni was not a man of peace, but a tactician of war,” Torres emphasized.
The Task Force underscored that contrary to the romanticized image some still cling to, Jalandoni had long been detached from the ground realities of the CPP-NPA-NDF. His life in exile in Utrecht, Netherlands, afforded him safety and comfort, while radicalized youth perished in remote outposts and dense forests—many unaware that the leaders they revered had long abandoned the frontlines for foreign asylum.
“Let us not allow nostalgia to blind us to the truth,” said Torres. “Jalandoni’s legacy is not one of courage, but of ideological betrayal—of the youth, the poor, and the communities he claimed to serve. He left the battlefields behind and watched from afar as others bled for his beliefs.”
The NTF-ELCAC called on the public to remain vigilant against renewed attempts to whitewash the legacy of insurgency and to focus instead on the true victims—the child soldiers, the exploited youth, the abused women, and the shattered families left behind.
“As Jalandoni joins the ranks of Sison and Agcaoili in death, we are not witnessing the end of a revolution, but the fading of a myth,” Torres concluded. “We will not honor the architect of protracted war. We will honor those who paid the price for it.”
