THE mortal remains of Luis Taruc, founder of the biggest resistance movement in the Philippines during World War II, were briefly paraded on board a funeral hearse in front of the Pampanga Provincial Capitol.

Pampanga board members, who represented Vice-Governor Dennis Pineda and Governor Lilia Pineda, honored the remains with a wreath offering while the Pampanga Capitol Brass Band was playing nationalistic songs.

Taruc’s remains were exhumed from the Loyola Memorial Park in Marikina City and later cremated.

The Center for Kapampangan Studies (CKS) said that Taruc’s remains will be re-interred on the occasion of his 105th birth anniversary which is also the feast day of the town’s patron saint, San Luis Gonzaga.

The CKS added that a two-night vigil will be held at the town’s San Luis Gonzaga Parish Church on June 19 and 20, to be followed by a Holy Mass presided by Pampanga’s Archbishop-Emeritus Most Reverend Paciano Aniceto and the reinterment ceremonies, both in the morning of June 21.

The San Luis Freedom Park will now also be known as the Luis Taruc Shrine since it contains, aside from his actual remains, the Luis Taruc Museum and the historical marker of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) detailing his heroic record, according to the CKS.

Taruc, who co-founded the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Hukbalahap) in 1942, led a guerrilla movement during World War II, which he recounted in his autobiography, “Born of the People,” a book that South African rebel-turned-president Nelson Mandela acknowledged as an inspiration for his own peasant movement and guerrilla warfare.