Filemon Lagman

He was the first prominent victim of a political assassination under the presidency of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, carried out in Bahay ng Alumni, University of the Philippines Diliman in Quezon City on February 8, 2001. His assassination is widely speculated to have been carried out by his former associates in the Communist Party. The assassins and the culprits have not yet been apprehended as of 2008. On July 2007, the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office decided to drop the case on eight suspected communist assassins since the witnesses were unable to attend the preliminary investigations.

Lagman was ambushed and shot to death by two unknown assassins on the afternoon of 6 February 2001, at the east-side steps of the University of the Philippines Bahay ng Alumni in Diliman, Quezon City. At the time of his death, Ka Popoy was working on the launch of the Partido ng Manggagawa, the workers' political party that would participate in the 2001 mid-term elections, among other revolutionary tasks for the Filipino working class.

When Martial Law was declared on 21 September 1972, Lagman established the first network of the underground revolutionary movement in Navotas. He organized, along with his comrades, the labor unions in factories and other work sites, launched mass mobilizations, developed a political mass base among workers and recruited more party members for the CPP.

During the First Quarter Storm, he was a member of Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (Democratic Association of the Youth) in the 1970s. After only a year in college at the University of the Philippines, he decided to go underground and do full-time organizing work in the factories and urban poor communities in the northern sector of Metro Manila. Ka Popoy was elected Secretary of the Manila-Rizal Regional Party Committee of the CPP in the mid-70's and spearheaded the broad formation which challenged the Marcos dictatorship in 1978 Batasan Pambansa elections. The Central Committee of the CPP admonished Ka Popoy and the whole regional committee for advocating participation in 1978 Batasan Pambansa elections because it ran counter to the CC call to head to the counryside to wage armed struggle against the dictatorship. Ka Popoy was only to return at the helm of the Manila-Rizal Regional Party Committee after the EDSA uprising of 1986. In spite of the differences with the central leadership, Ka Popoy strived harder to strengthen revolutionary work in the capital city.

Filemon grew up in Caloocan City. He was a track and field athlete of Caloocan High School. He was of short stature (perhaps about 5'6" in height). His belligerence started to manifest during his early high school days whenever he voices out his communistic beliefs by being argumentative against a few teachers that contradicted his ideologies. Then Superintendent of City Schools, Mrs. Modesta G. Boquiren "played politics" and heeded his voice on occasions by not contradicting him. Lagman found friendship with Mrs. Boquiren's nephew Florante "Randy" Deguzman as his temporary running mate in high school. Filemon graduated in 1970 while Florante in 1971. They've lost contact in College days.

Filemon Lagman (March 17, 1953 – February 6, 2001), popularly known as Ka Popoy was a revolutionary socialist and workers' leader in the Philippines. He shares the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. He split with the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1991 to form Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) and the multi-sectoral group Sanlakas.