Comrade Antonio Zumel, a leading Filipino 
communist, dies at age 69

Former National Democratic Front of the 
Philippines (NDFP) Chairpersyn and Philippine 
National Press Club president Antonio "Manong 
Tony" Zumel died August 13 in his hospital after a 
lingering illness. 

"He dedicated his best years of 
his life for the struggle to complete the new-
democratic revolution and pave the way for the 
working class to fulfill its historic mission of 
building socialism and preparing the way for 
communism," writes Jose Maria Sison, founding 
Chairpersyn of the Communist Party of the 
Philippines. 

"Comrade Zumel was already 
accomplished in his profession before he joined 
the revolutionary movement. He rose from copy boy 
to reporter in The Philippines Herald. He was the 
news editor of the Manila Bulletin and was twice 
elected to the presidency of the National Press 
Club (NPC)... 

"At the same time, he was 
consistently a union organizer and union leader in 
the newspapers that he worked for. He and his 
colleagues were about to launch a federation of 
mass media workers' unions when [u.$.-backed 
dictator Ferdinand Marcos imposed] martial law on 
the country in 1972. 

"From the outbreak of the 
First Quarter Storm of 1970 to the declaration of 
martial law in 1972, he made the NPC a stronghold 
of the mass organizations in the Movement for a 
Democratic Philippines." The first three months of 
1970 marked an upsurge in the National Democratic 
movement's mass actions. According to a veteran 
comrade, "The First Quarter Storm exposed and 
opposed a rotting system where U.S. imperialism, 
feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism held sway. 

It also propagated the line and program of the 
National Democratic Movement, which is meant to 
replace the old and decaying bourgeois democratic 
movement. The First Quarter Storm was a school to 
help prepare the cadres and mass activists in 
confronting the enemy." Comrade Sison continues, 
"It was in 1970-1972 that he developed rapidly 
into a communist revolutionary... During his 
second term as NPC president he aligned the NPC 
with the movement for national liberation and 
democracy. Upon the suspension of the writ of 
habeas corpus in 1971, he helped establish the 
Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil 
Liberties... "He went underground on the day that 
martial rule of the Marcos fascist dictatorship 
began. [According to one account, he swam across a 
river to escape fascist goons who were looking for 
him at the NPC.] "Comrade Zumel made crucial 
contributions to the Second Great Rectification 
Movement. He stood firmly for the ideology of 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, the political line of the 
new-democratic revolution through protracted 
people's war and the organizational line of 
democratic centralism. He vigorously criticized 
and repudiated the major errors committed by the 
opportunists and renegades from 1979 to 1992. 

"He reached the highest level of leadership in the 
revolutionary movement, as a member of the Central 
Committee of the Communist Party of the 
Philippines since 1980 and as chairman of the NDFP 
from 1990 to 1994... He was editor-in-chief of 
Liberation and Balita ng Malayang Pilipinas at 
various times. 

"Comrades in various organs and 
organizations entrusted to him all these high 
positions by virtue of his dedication to the 
revolutionary cause of the proletariat and the 
people, his high level of ideological, political 
and organizational competence, his style of simple 
living, hard work, and arduous struggle and his 
humility and selflessness." 

National Democratic 
organizations in southern California held a ITAL 
parangal END -- commemoration -- for Comrade Zumel 
after a talk by "Lengua" de Guzman on 23 August. 
Several comrades spoke of their persynal 
experiences with Comrade Zumel. One spoke of his 
copious knowledge and experience, which he gladly 
shared with younger comrades. "He was like a 
library." Another spoke at length on Comrade 
Zumel's legacies. As an example of Comrade Zumel's 
ability to apply scientific principles to concrete 
reality, he cited Comrade Zumel's article 
"Remembrance of the First Quarter Storm of 1970." 
"Looking back through the preceding years to the 
First Quarter Storm of 1970 (FQS), one harkens to 
a time of cerebral and physical ferment, a time of 
trepidation and courage, a time of study and 
education, a time of the heightening of political 
consciousness, a time to make critical decisions 
affecting one's life like going full time into 
revolutionary work. I was a journalist at that 
time and having trained to be an observer of the 
day-to-day life of our society, I should have 
appraised the events of the FQS with some 
objectivity and impartiality, as my elders in 
newspapering would like to say. But like many 
students, workers and peasants at that time, and 
like some journalists and other professionals as 
well, I too went through a process of political 
awakening. In my ensuing political conduct, I was 
not to be impartial. I was to be partial to the 
cause of the broad masses of our people. As a 
result of the FQS, the National Press Club of the 
Philippines (NPC) of which I was president, passed 
a resolution at its 1970 National Convention 
aligning the NPC in the movement for National 
Independence and Democracy. Among the things I 
remember most was the spirit of learning that 
pervaded the mass activists and their sense of 
courage." 

The speaker also praised Comrade Zumel's 
exemplary commitment. "His utter devotion to 
others without any thought of self was shown in 
his boundless sense of responsibility in his work 
and his boundless warm-heartedness towards all 
comrades. Neither age nor sickness could hinder 
him from fulfilling his revolutionary tasks. 

"Ka Tony prevailed over sacrifices and hardship and 
withstood the pain of the sickness of diabetes, 
even to the point of carrying his medicines and 
insulin paraphernalia to meetings. He asked 
comrades to give him an injection of insulin when 
he needed it, because of his determination not to 
miss an organizational meeting to which he has 
previously committed. He worried about his 
ailment, not in physical weakness but in the 
thought that his services would be lessened. 

"With Ka Tony's passing, we have lost a very valuable 
comrade. The struggling people, the progressives, 
the nationalists, solidarity friends, and his 
comrades in the revolution are mourning. They 
mourn not in weakening resolve, but in a greater 
desire to finish what was started. Tears and blood 
that make justice flow and heat up the fury of the 
people will crush the exploiters and oppressors."