Emerito Rodriguez, whom friends called Pekong, was born to a poor family in Digos. His family managed to send him to college, but poverty prevented him from completing it.
Pekong Rodriguez became a full-time organizer for Khi Rho, the youth arm of the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF), a group with members from across the country, advocating for agrarian reform. Khi Rho worked actively with farmers. In 1971, he was a delegate at the Khi Rho convention in Butuan when the leaders decided to take a national democratic position. He represented Khi Rho’s Davao del Sur chapter as its chairperson.
During the Lenten Season of 1972, Pekong led his Khi Rho chapter to join a ‘Calvary March’ that mobilized about 8,000 young activists and farmers from Davao del Sur, Davao del Norte and Davao Oriental, marching all the way to Rizal Park in Davao City. Some carried crosses to symbolize the farmers’ burden of landlessness and continuing injustice. Pekong spoke at the rally in Davao City.
Pekong Rodriguez was a diligent reader and an active discussant in group discussions. He read political books and urged his friends to do so also, so they could share their knowledge with others.
Later Pekong became an instructor in an agro-technical school set up by an FFF leader, Emil Neri. The school, called a “people’s university,” was located in Kabasagan, Matanao, Davao del Sur. Farmers and their children went there and learned about scientific farming, along with political thoughts and social studies, which Pekong handled.
One night in November 1972, with martial law declared by Ferdinand Marcos just a couple of months before, soldiers raided the agro-technical school, killing two live-in occupants. The school had to close, and Pekong, expecting arrest, moved to Davao Oriental, where an active underground resistance movement was already operating in Lupon, Mati, and Banay-banay.
In this new community, with his experience in instruction especially in agriculture, he volunteered to help teach farmers about communal farming and fishpond building, among others. Farmers welcomed the knowledge as it raised their productivity and improved their livelihoods. He also talked about the political situation in the country, and explained about the need to develop a movement to resist the dictatorship.
On April 17, 1975, Pekong Rodriguez was to fetch someone from the city (Nicolsa Solana Jr., Bantayog honoree) about to join their underground formation. Unfortunately, a group of paramilitary troopers (Civilian Home Defense Forces) ambushed them when they passed near Sumlog River. Nick died on the spot. Pekong was wounded mortally and he hid himself, and his body was only recovered after two (2) days. Later, people from the community came to bury Pekong in the same spot he died. Nick’s body was retrieved by his family and flown to Manila for burial.
Pekong was married to another Bantayog honoree, Maria Socorro Par, a schoolmate, fellow Khi-Rho member and his comrade. They have a son.
Pekong Rodriguez is remembered as an “intellectual na hinashasan” or an intellectual whose mind was sharpened by his willingness to work in the ground among the poor people who were searching for justice and freedom from poverty and oppression.
