Alfredo Malicay was the son of poor farmers from Davao. He was an affectionate and respectful son, and a hardworking student. He was also a natural leader, active in several groups such as the 4H Club and the Boy Scouts of the Philippines and in high school PMT. He won a college scholarship from the 4H Club and took an agricultural chemistry course at the University of the Philippines College of Agriculture (UPCA) in Los Baños, Laguna.
Alfredo showed exceptional literary skills in college. He wrote poems, and was editor-in-chief from 1968 to 1969 of the Aggie Green and Gold, the official student publication at UPCA.
Activism was then spreading in the campus, and Alfredo joined the chapter of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) in the university and became one of its organizers. He also became a member and later officer of the Upsilon Sigma Phi fraternity, then known for its nationalistic and progressive leanings.
As KM organizer, Alfredo went around recruiting for KM in key schools in Southern Tagalog and in communities around the campus. He wrote rousing articles for the Aggie Green and Gold, addressing the youth and urging them to embrace nationalism, democracy and academic freedom.
He also worked with friends from the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK), to launch campus campaigns to urge students to become involved in issues such as academic freedom, high tuition fees, and the lack of student participation in campus decision-making. Alfredo and his fellow activists organized a Friday discussion group called UP College of Agriculture Cultural Society (UPCACS), which met and reviewed books by nationalist historian Renato Constantino and by the Chinese leader Mao Zedong, among others, and other articles and books, particularly about the Vietnam war.
Under Alfredo, the Aggie Green and Gold became a powerful instrument in rousing and organizing students to support the youth movement espousing nationalism, democracy and freedom.
He completed his undergraduate degree in 1971, but did not seek employment after graduation. Instead, he went into fulltime organizing, moving from Laguna, to Quezon, to Batangas, calling on the youth to demand social reforms for the poor and exploited sectors in the Philippines.
In 1972, he went back to school to begin a graduate course in UP Diliman. But martial law intervened. He returned to Los Baños and resumed fulltime activist work against the Marcos dictatorship, this time in a clandestine setting. He combined his organizational and literary skills and effectively guided the small anti-dictatorship groups in the region to survive the crackdown, recruit new members, and launch actions to give people hope in becoming involved in fighting and eventually toppling the dictatorship.
In mid-1973, a series of arrests of activists in their network alarmed Alfredo’s group so the group called a meeting in October to plan contingency and security measures. Unfortunately, intelligence teams found the very same house where they were meeting in Malabon, Rizal. In the subsequent raid of that house, three were arrested, including Nelia Sancho, Tita Lubi and Rosemarie Rodriguez, and two were shot and killed, including Alfredo, and one Cesar Hicaro.
Because his family was too poor to travel from Tagum, Alfredo’s fraternity brothers took care of retrieving his body and having it buried with simple burial rites at the Navotas Public Cemetery. It remains there today. Three of Alfredo’s brothers later became also involved in the anti-Marcos resistance movement.
