30/05/2026
Forwarded message to my messenger, exposing Terry Ridon and his connections...
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Justine Bautista was a former student leader at the Cagayan State University (CSU) who joined her parents in the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) when she was just 17.
Justine was a member of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) and the Kabataan Party List before she decided to go underground. She was initially a student organizer and recruiter before becoming a political and medical officer for the Northern Front of the Cagayan Valley Regional Committee of the CPP-NPA.
Known as Ka Aira, Justine was killed during a failed raid on a military detachment in Baggao, Cagayan, on June 25, 2017. She was 25 years old when she died from the wounds she sustained in the incident.
Justine was hastily buried in a shallow unmarked grave in Sitio Kapanisuwan, Barangay Bitag, also in Baggao. She was all but forgotten up there in the mountains until authorities were led to her gravesite in 2021 by a former comrade who wanted to give her a decent burial. Her remains were unearthed and then turned over to her relatives for a proper burial.
“Mabibigyan na ng maayos at disenteng libing ang aking kaibigan hindi gaya ng ginawa ng CPP-NPA na iniwanan na lang matapos niyang pag-alayan ng buhay,” Justine’s close comrade said.
We wonder if this was the fate that befell Christina Pasion, a United States citizen who has been missing and unaccounted for after she was reported wounded in an armed engagement between NPA rebels she was with and government forces in Mindoro Occidental.
A leader of Migrante USA, Christina was with Chantal Anicoche, another US citizen and like her also from Maryland, when government forces clashed with NPA rebels in Abra de Ilog on January 1, 2026.
Christina was able to flee with the rebels but Chantal got separated from them and was recovered by government forces eight days later and subsequently reunited with her family in the US.
Christina has been on the run since then and was believed to have been wounded in another clash between government forces and NPA rebels in San Jose, Occidental Mindoro, on March 24, 2026.
What is believed to her journal was among the items captured from the encounter scene. In that journal, Christina, who assumed the nom de guerre Ka Esther, had expressed disillusionment about the communist movement. Her other entries have prompted concerns about the state of her mental health.
When Christina failed to show up for her scheduled return flight back to the United States, concerns have been raised about her condition.
Is Christina still alive? If she is, where is she? Is she still with the rebels in Mindoro? Has she recuperated from her wounds? Is she still in a state of depression?
Or did she suffer the same fate as Justine? Buried and left behind in an unmarked grave somewhere in the mountains of Mindoro? Forgotten until someone remembers.
Is this how Filipino-American activists who romanticize armed struggle want their stories to end?
