07/06/2025
SA GITNA NG PASISMO, PATULOY ANG PAKIKIBAKA: PAGPUPUGAY KAY DEE SUPELANAS AT SA KABANKALAN 7
In a time when truth is silenced and resistance is criminalized, the militant youth remembers those who dared to rise and live for something far greater than themselves. The life and struggle of John Isidor "Dee" Supelanas, along with the Kabankalan 7, embody the undying spirit of collective resistance and revolutionary love for the Filipino people. The University of the Philippines Office of the Student Regent and Katipunan ng mga Sangguniang Mag-aaral sa UP, stands in militant solidarity as we mourn, honor, and celebrate the lives of those who fell in the fight against tyranny and injustice.
Last April 27, 2025, Dee Supelanas, former Chairperson of UP Cebu University Student Council, former KASAMA sa UP Deputy Secretary General for Membership, and 38th UP Student Regent Nominee, was slain along other six red fighters during a joint operation by 302nd Brigade led by Brigadier General Joey A. Escanillas with the combined forces of 47th and 11th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Tapi, Kabankalan City, Negros Occidental.
Dee was one of the many youth activists who witnessed firsthand the violence and injustice of the Duterte regime, who then chose to be part of the national democratic movement. Dee first joined the Nagkahiusang Kusog sa Estudyante in 2018. Then, she ran as the College of Communication, Art, and Design Representative to the USC under the banner of NKE, where she served from 2019 to 2021. In 2020, Dee was also nominated as the 38th Student Regent Nominee from UP Cebu. In the following year, they served as the Chairperson of UPC USC.
She militantly led the UPC USC in campaigning for the return of students to the university. Along with the annual socio-political event of UPC: UP Cookout, in which she used this platform to amplify the Martial Law declared in Mindanao that led to the displacement of countless Lumad communities. She was also at the forefront of the UPC Walkout Against State Repression and Fascism during the threats of campus militarization and Mandatory Reserve Officers' Training Corps. Only a few of which were the presence of Dee’s long-standing militancy against inequality and injustice, to which she responded with unending service for the people.
UP OSR and KASAMA sa UP pay our highest tribute to Kabankalan 7, who sacrificed their lives for the Filipino people. As long as the roots of oppression and exploitation remain, resistance will always be the choice of the Filipino and will make them recognize the necessity of the resolve and sacrifice that Dee and other revolutionaries, who chose the path taken by the few, towards serving the farmers in the countryside.
The Filipino youth is facing numerous problems in our education system due to the budget cuts and student repression. The peasants, including those with whom Kabankalan 7 lived, continue to experience landlessness and land-use conversions. Yet the administration’s priority is allocated for the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police, who are the number one promoters of fascism towards the Filipino people.
We condemn the continuous violence and impunity against progressives and revolutionaries by the US-Marcos-Duterte regime and state forces. Our call for justice continues. Revolutionaries are not terrorists. Terror-tagging of the state must stop as it continues to impose threats to safety for those who are labeled as such. We are also one with the call to resume peace talks and address the roots of armed struggle.
This is a blatant reminder that the state and its fascist agenda against activists and revolutionaries is not an approach for peace, but a reminder that those who resist the rotten system will be forcibly silenced. Dee and the entirety of the victims of state attacks are closer to the longing of the masses for genuine freedom and democracy than the black propaganda that they are enemies of the Filipino people. The lesson we learn in mourning these losses is not to stand down, but to march forward with even stronger conviction that killing the flowers will not delay justice nor peace. Their sacrifices will not be forgotten, for they are the seeds of a future rooted in liberation.
LET A THOUSAND DAHLIAS BLOOM! LONG LIVE DEE SUPELANAS! LONG LIVE KABANKALAN 7!
