THE death of New People’s Army (NPA) officer Myrna Sularte alias Maria Malaya hit differently, especially upon seeing her photos. The widow of former NPA leader Jorge Madlos alias Ka Oris (who was also killed in a gun battle last October 2021 when he was already 72 years old), was killed in a gun battle with soldiers on February 12, 2025 at sitio Imelda, Barangay Pianing, Butuan City. To live in discomfort as photos of the remnants of their camp showed, armed and running… when your faculties are no longer limber, what worse nightmare awaits an elderly?
Of late, my mother has turned for the worse as she nears her 89th year. From a stubborn, headstrong lady who’d insist on going to the mall on her own just last year, now, she can’t even walk beyond a few steps. The stubbornness and being headstrong remain such that you can imagine the challenge we, her children, face each day.
But we can say, at least, that while we are swinging between showing our love and stretching our patience and tolerance to near-breaking point, she’s there at my sister’s home, cared for, fed, and sleeping in a comfortable bed.
Maria Malaya did not have that luxury. She had to scramble with her comrades every day in anticipation of meeting the enemy and firing back with whatever firepower she had.
How can someone choose such a life, convinced that violence can bring peace? But we can’t blame her if that was indeed her belief. She chose that belief and that life. She and her husband were not even granted retirement to grow old in peace and get their chance to stretch their children’s patience to the farthest they can.
Having read of how life lived in violence can end, let us spare the young and gullible from such future. Let us show them that peace is the only way and it cannot be had through war. The first step is by showing them that we can choose good governance and not this blatantly corrupt government we are now witnessing.
You reap what you sow. You can’t expect peace from war; that is not how Universal Laws work. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction is Newton’s Third Law of Motion. Whether you look at it esoterically and spiritually or you look at it scientifically… every bullet fired with the intent to kill will come back with an equal intent to kill, and that was how both Ka Oris and Maria Malaya chose to live and end their lives. It’s just heartbreaking that this happened in the twilight years of their lives.
Imagine me, just 60, and all my friends who are already in the fifth and sixth decade of their lives,l laughing at the extra effort it takes to stretch our muscles. And then there was Maria Malaya, older than us.
As her comrades mourn, I can only pray that may her next lifetime be full of love, peace, and joy. May this lifetime lived in violence be the end of her life lessons on how true peace can be achieved.
-o0o-
* Stella is a Pranic Healing educator and an Arhatic Yoga practitioner. Email: saestremera@gmail.com, fb: /saestremera, IG: @saestremera