After citing just the twin factors — the capital flight which the euthanasia of Benigno Aquino Jr. caused in 1983 and the 52-year-old communist terrorist insurgency of the Communist Party of the Philippines-New People’s Army, which Ninoy formed in tandem with Jose Maria Sison back in 1968 — that have largely contributed to the continuing retardation of the economic development of the country, and then stressing that both Ninoy and Sison are products of the University of the Philippines, I thought I said all that I had to say on why Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana is quite justified in unilaterally abrogating the UP-Department of National Defense agreement of 1989. But then comes this Open Letter from Captain Sherhannah Paiso of the Armed Forces of the Philippines sent to my email. I gape at realizing that the “UP Commune” has not only been turned upside down but is burning, and burning. The readers surely deserve this update.

Printed below is the letter in its pristine form.