By By Juliane Judilla
Students and various organizations from the University of the Philippines Visayas gathered for a candlelighting program on January 30 in remembrance of the sixth death anniversary of slain National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) peace consultant and UPV alum, Randy Felix Malayao.
The students paid tribute to Malayao’s legacy at the university as a staunch student activist and an outspoken campus journalist.
Malayao graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Fisheries from the University of the Philippines Visayas – College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (CFOS), where he also served as the Editor-in-Chief of Ang Mangingisda, the official student publication of the college. He was also a member of the Beta Sigma Fraternity and the founding chairperson of the League of Filipino Students-UP Visayas.
Malayao was elected vice president for Visayas of the College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) from 1991 to 1994. He later left Visayas and was appointed CEGP National Deputy Secretary General, working in the CEGP national office.
After years as a campus journalist, Malayao became a peasant activist and the coordinator of the Bayan Muna Party-list in Cagayan Valley. In 2008, under Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s regime, he was imprisoned for 4 years and was subjected to torture.
Upon his release, he became a peace consultant for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), where he sat in various international peace forums and negotiations with the Government Republic of the Philippines (GRP) to understand and address the root cause of armed conflict.
On January 30, 2019, around 2:30 in the morning, Malayao was soundly asleep on a bus parked at a terminal in Aritao, Nueva Vizcaya, when two unidentified men shot him dead./PT
