This write-up on my Ateneo de Naga high school classmate, Romulo “Mulo” Oliveros, is based on the tribute of his comrades in the revolutionary movement after his death and my own personal experience with Mulo.

Romulo Oliveros was born to a peasant family in Buhi, Camarines Sur in 1950. He finished elementary education in Buhi as class valedictorian. A priest helped him enroll at the Ateneo de Naga because he saw in the young Mulo his good nature and diligence. Mulo was soft-spoken and shy and did not involve himself in frivolous activities as many of us, his classmates, did.

Like many young boys at that time, we would find some pretext to organize home discos so we could do the soul or boogie with our favorite colegialas.  And there would be the usual drinking sprees on beer/gin/coke that would end up with some of the merrymakers sleeping over at the venue.  I don’t remember Mulo joining us in this kid stuff.  

His regular routine was going to school and then returning straight home after school.  If I am not mistaken, he worked part-time at the Ateneo de Naga library. I think he graduated in the top 5 in our class.

After high school, he had to work to finance his college education at the University of the East (UE). He studied commerce while working at Colgate-Palmolive in Mandaluyong. 

He got his political awakening at UE during the stormy period of youth activism in the 1970s. He became a member of Kabataang Makabayan (KM), the radical youth and student organization that spearheaded many of the demonstrations against the corrupt and authoritarian Marcos regime. He went underground in 1972 upon the declaration of Martial Law to join the movement against the Marcos dictatorship.  He worked as an organizer among factory workers and urban poor in Metro Manila.

He went back to Bicol in 1975 and took up various tasks in the revolutionary underground. He first worked in the urban areas of Bicol, organizing among the youth and students in colleges and universities, women, factory workers, and transport workers.

He later proceeded to work in the countryside.  One of his more important tasks was to give political education to NPA cadres and fighters and to the peasant masses who were organized into peasant associations.

I remember my first encounter with Mulo in the underground during Martial Law. I was scheduled to meet a certain “Ka Mario from Bicol” and a courier was supposed to introduce me to this important person.  While waiting for the courier at the appointed place, I caught a glimpse of Mulo and I instinctively turned away so he would not see me, a normal behavior of people in the underground to remain incognito except to comrades in the struggle.  When the courier arrived, he approached Mulo and guided him to where I was for the introduction. But we did not need any introduction. It was a pleasant surprise for us both.  We had no idea we were meeting each other and were comrades in the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship. We had a good laugh.

In 1981, he was elected to the Executive Committee of the Bicol Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) at the First Regional Party Conference. He was later elected to head the Bicol Committee to lead the overall revolutionary work in the region when its former head, Sotero Llamas, was arrested.  Llamas was later killed traitorously by government agents although he was already engaged in the legal democratic movement during the spree of extrajudicial killings under the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime.

In his capacity as head of the Bicol Regional Party Committee, Mulo was responsible for the overall work of the Party and the NPA in the entire Bicol Region.  Leading cadres of the Party and the NPA gave him credit for the big advances achieved in the overall revolutionary work in the region.

He enjoyed the love and high esteem of his fellow cadres and ordinary members of the Party and the NPA. 

His comrades knew him as a quiet but intelligent person.  He was humble and simple without any pretensions. He was a good listener and was respectful of comrades who had views contrary to his own on some issues.

He submitted himself to the decision of the committee to which he belonged whenever he held the minority opinion on the matter at hand in accordance with the principle of collective leadership in the Party.  However, because of his firm grasp of revolutionary theory and its correct application in practice, he was often proven to be correct in the analysis of problems and working out solutions.

His comrades have some edifying stories about him. He did not shirk any responsibility big or small like gathering firewood, fetching drinking water, cooking, washing dishes, and doing other routine chores in the camp. He led by example.

I once visited their area and was led to a peasant hut. I found him in the kitchen in a squatting position preparing the ingredients for the all-time favorite, super-spicy “Bicol Express”.

His warm-heartedness and concern for comrades were legendary. He offered his slippers to a comrade, a young subordinate, who had no footwear. Later, the comrade was moved with emotion when he saw Mulo walking around the camp barefoot.

In another instance, he went to a poor barrio which was part of the expansion area and not yet part of the stronghold of the NPA. Although he was tired and hungry from the long walk, he never asked for food from his peasant host. After a little rest, he and his other NPA comrades joined the peasants working in the rice fields, only to faint from hunger and exhaustion. The people in that barrio never forgot the incident. That barrio would later welcome the NPA with open arms.

Romulo “Ka Mario” Oliveros was killed on June 7, 2000, in Labo, Camarines Norte. AFP troops surrounded his HQ and shot him in the ensuing gun battle. He left behind a wife and 2 children whose photos he always kept in his wallet.