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NILO VALERIO

Christopher Nilo Valerio was a former priest and member of the New People's Army. He led the resistance of the people of Abra against the Cellophil Resource Corporation's development plans that would have brought destructive effects to the ancestral lands of the indigenous peoples of Cordillera. He was one of the four rebel priests of Abra, the others being Cirilo Ortega, Bruno Ortega and Conrado Balweg.

Early Years

Nilo Valerio was born on February 20, 1950 to Epigenio Valerio Sr. and Candida Castillejos, both of whom were government employees. He grew up an admirer of his family’s religious pursuits. His father was an ex-seminarian, and two of his uncles were priests. As such, he aspired at an early age to become a missionary. In 1962, Valerio entered the Christ the King Minor Seminary in Quezon City, beginning his formation under the Society of the Divine Word (SVD), later completing his training at their Major Seminary in Tagaytay. It was here where Valerio became acquainted with two of his colleagues, Bruno and Cirilo Ortega, both of whom were part of the Tingguians’ Binongan tribe from the province of Abra. The two told Valerio countless stories of their people, and this left an imprint in the mind of Valerio, whose outlook on the current situation of the indigenous peoples drastically change.

Valerio was sent to Abra in 1971 to serve a one-year regency period as part of his ordainment. He taught Tingguians at a high school administered by an SVD parish church, which oversaw the upland municipalities of Sallapadan, Bucloc and Daguioman. His knowledge of and connection to the people of Abra deepened. He learned of the emerging presence of the Cellophil Resources Corporation, which had been planning to take over some 200,000 hectares of land in Abra, which amounted to two-thirds of the province's overall land area. The project would severely affect the lives of hundreds of families in Cordillera as a whole. Valerio briefly returned to Tagaytay upon the end of his regency period, but in 1975, after his ordainment, he returned to Abra to help the people defend their ancestral lands.

As Part of the Revolutionary Movement

Valerio was assigned as an assistant parish priest for the municipalities of Lacub, Licuan and Tineg. As Cellophil geared up to convince the locals to turn over their land and concession area through increasingly aggressive means, Valerio began helping the residents resist and organize. The result was the Tiempo bodong of 1978, which united peace pact holders throughout the provinces of Cordillera and laid down a pact to continue their resistance against the development projects of the government in the area, which, at the time, also included the Chico River Dam Project.

The resistance, while effective in delaying the activities of Cellophil, only pushed the local military forces to take more drastic measures against the locals. They began forcibly ejecting families, as well as detaining and torturing resistance leaders. Valerio, for his part in leading the movement, was viewed as a subversive. The local authorities began monitoring his activities, forcing him to return to Manila in 1979. When he returned to Abra the following, he had steeled his resolve to quit the church and joined New People's Army. Valerio quickly proved to be a capable leader for the movement, as he became in charge of organizing and planning for their operations. The continuation of the people's resistance, and the emergence of the NPA, slowly crippled the progress of Cellophil's project.

In April that same year, Valerio married a fellow guerrilla fighter, who became pregnant a few months after. She gave birth in 1981, but shortly after became pregnant again. With the intensification of the group's activities, Valerio moved his wife back to the city to care for their children. He, on the other hand, got transferred with a smaller unit to Ilocos Sur, then later to Benguet. Valerio was able to reunite with his family briefly towards the end of 1984 before he returned to the movement in January 1985.

Death

On August 24 that year, Valerio, along with two other comrades, was killed during a military raid in Sitio Beyeng in Bakun, Benguet. According to subsequent investigations, the three victims were taken by the military and beheaded. Their heads were then paraded in nearby sitios to scare the locals. As of today, the remains of Nilo Valerio have never been found.

FERDINAND MARCOS' CULT OF PERSONALITY

Claims of guerrilla force leadership

Communications from American military officers also detail their disapproval in recognizing the guerrilla unit. In a memorandum sent to the Adjutant General, Lt. Col. Parker Calvert relayed the order of Col. Volckmann to inform Marcos's request is disapproved, citing that the "Ang Manga Maharlika" is not among the units recognized by the higher headquarters of the military.

Medals controversy

Marcos claims he received it in 1945, but the latter, following his retreat to Bataan, then to Australia, was only able to return to the Philippines in 1944, when his troops landed in Leyte. The following year, after the surrender of Japan, MacArthur was installed as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces and was tasked with demobilizing Japan and framing its constitution, allowing little to no time to meet Marcos. No archival sources or published works related to MacArthur allude to him personally pinning the medal on Marcos as well. Jose further questions that if Marcos did indeed single-handedly delay the advances of the Japanese, he would have likely been bestowed with the Medal of Honor, as was the case with Jose Calugas, whose actions in 1942 impeded Japanese forces by two days. Indeed, as of February 2021, searching through the list of recipients of the Medal of Honor, Purple Heart and Silver Star yields no result for Ferdinand Marcos.