Benito Tiamzon

Benito Tiamzon (March 20, 1951 – August 22, 2022) was a Filipino political organizer and until his arrest in March 2014 by Philippine security forces, was believed to be the Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA).

Born and raised in Marikina, Tiamzon attended the University of the Philippines Diliman in the late 1960s, where he wrote for the Philippine Collegian. Joining the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (Association of Democratic Youth; SDK) as a student, he would eventually become a member of the CPP, in which he helped organize labor unions in Marikina and Caloocan.

Tiamzon secretly married his fellow activist Wilma Austria in early 1973, but was later arrested and detained in Fort Bonifacio by July during martial law. A year later, he was released and soon after would move with Wilma to the island of Samar in the Eastern Visayas region. In later years, Tiamzon would be credited with transforming Eastern Visayas into a solid base for the NPA in its insurgency movement. During a brief power struggle in the CPP, Tiamzon reportedly became the leader of the party upon successively acquiring the positions of chairman and secretary general in 1986 and 1987 respectively.

In March 2014, Tiamzon and Wilma were captured by both the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine National Police (PNP) in Carcar, Cebu, but they were eventually released from detention in 2016 by President Rodrigo Duterte to participate in peace talks between the government and the National Democratic Front. After peace talks fell through, the couple evaded an order for their rearrest and transferred back to Samar. A boat explosion off the coast of Samar during an AFP Joint Task Force operation on August 22, 2022, is speculated to have resulted in the deaths of Tiamzon and Wilma, but the military refrained from confirming this due to lack of evidence.