When Leaving Became Her Way Home

Before sunrise, Marilou Amit begins her day with the animals she raises. There are chickens to feed, pigs to tend to, ducks moving around their pens, and turkeys that require their own care. The work follows a routine that has gradually become familiar to her: wake up, prepare what is needed, check on the animals, and begin the day.

For most people, there is nothing particularly extraordinary about such a morning. It is the kind of routine repeated in countless homes and small farms across the countryside. But for Marilou, ordinary life was once something difficult to hold on to. For years, her life followed a very different rhythm—one shaped by movement, assignments, meetings and responsibilities inside the underground communist movement.

There, she was known by another name: Dayen.

Today, at 48, Marilou lives differently. She spends time with her family, maintains her livelihood and occasionally shares the experiences that shaped a significant part of her life. Her story is not simply about leaving the mountains or abandoning an organization. It is also about the difficult and often overlooked process that follows: learning how to build an ordinary life after years spent living differently.

The Life of “Dayen“

Between 2014 and 2020, Marilou was involved in political, organizational and support work in different parts of North Cotabato. She was associated with Guerrilla Front 53 of the Southern Mindanao Regional Committee and eventually served as a Political Instructor. Her work included conducting political education, helping organize sectoral groups, facilitating meetings, participating in community activities and supporting various organizational requirements.

The work brought her into different communities and required her to move frequently from one area to another. Life was shaped by the needs of the organization and the assignments given to her. There were meetings to attend, discussions to facilitate and people to reach. Over time, the responsibilities became part of a life that revolved around a larger political struggle and a belief that Philippine society required fundamental change.

As a Political Instructor, Marilou was involved in helping explain the movement’s political ideas and perspectives to others. Political education was not simply an additional activity within the organization. It was central to how members understood their role, the problems facing communities and the kind of change they believed was necessary.

For years, Marilou lived inside that world.

But years inside any movement can also bring questions that are not easily answered by political education or organizational meetings. People grow older. Families change. Children grow up. Parents age. And eventually, the life a person has committed to may begin to compete with the life they still hope to have.

The Cost of Constant Movement

Marilou’s years in the movement were marked by constant mobility. There was often another place to go, another task to perform or another community to visit. The routines familiar to most families—regular meals together, predictable schedules and the certainty of coming home every afternoon—were difficult to maintain.

Over time, exhaustion began to take its place alongside commitment. Marilou had spent years giving her time and energy to the work assigned to her, but she increasingly found herself thinking about something much simpler. She wanted to live a normal life. More than anything, she wanted to spend time with her family.

These were not grand political ambitions. They were ordinary desires that had become increasingly important after years of living according to the demands of an organization.

For people who have never lived inside an underground movement, the decision to leave may sound straightforward. But leaving behind a life that has shaped a person’s identity for years is rarely simple. Relationships are left behind. Familiar routines disappear. The role a person once carried no longer defines what comes next. And beyond the decision itself is another difficult question: what kind of life will be waiting afterward?

By January 2021, Marilou had reached her own answer. She decided to leave.

Beginning Again

Leaving the movement was only the beginning of another kind of journey.

After years of living according to assignments and organizational responsibilities, Marilou had to begin rebuilding a life around her own choices and the needs of her family. Like many people starting over, she needed to find a way to earn a living and establish a routine that could sustain her beyond the world she had left behind.

She eventually turned to raising animals. Chickens, pigs, ducks and turkeys became part of her daily work and a source of livelihood. The work required patience and consistency. Animals have to be fed every day. Their shelters need attention. Their health has to be monitored. There are expenses to consider and income to earn.

It was demanding work, but it gave her something she had spent years without: stability.

For Marilou, rebuilding her life did not happen through a single dramatic moment. It happened through routines. Through work. Through returning to family. Through waking up and knowing where she would be that day.

There is something significant about ordinary work after a life defined by constant movement. A livelihood may not carry the same sense of political purpose or historical importance that once surrounded her previous work, but it offered something more immediate: the ability to build a life around her own future.

More Than the Life She Left

Marilou does not deny the years she spent inside the movement. They remain part of her life and shaped many of the experiences she carries today. She remembers the communities she visited, the people she worked with and the political ideas she once believed in. She also remembers the sacrifices that came with that life, particularly the time spent away from family and the uncertainty that followed years of constant movement.

But she no longer wants her life to be defined only by the role she once held.

That can be one of the more difficult realities for people who leave armed or underground movements. Society often remembers them through the identity they abandoned. They become permanently described as a former rebel, former cadre, former organizer or former fighter. The past becomes the first thing mentioned about them, sometimes even after their lives have changed completely.

Yet life after an armed movement deserves its own story.

What happens when the meetings end? What happens when the old assignments no longer exist? How does someone learn to earn money, reconnect with family, make independent decisions and create a future outside the organization that once shaped nearly every aspect of daily life?

For Marilou, those questions became part of the process of becoming herself again.

What She Wants to Share

Today, Marilou occasionally speaks about her experiences and the life she once lived. She shares her story not as a representative of everyone who entered or left the communist movement, but as someone who has personally experienced one part of a conflict that has shaped communities in Mindanao for decades.

Her experience is her own.

People enter armed movements for different reasons. Some are influenced by ideology. Some are drawn by personal experiences of poverty, injustice or conflict. Some join because of family or community connections. Others are convinced by political organizing. People also leave for different reasons—disillusionment, exhaustion, family, fear, changing beliefs or the simple desire to live another kind of life.

Marilou’s reason was deeply personal. After years of involvement, she wanted to live normally and spend more time with her family.

That does not erase what came before. It simply explains why she chose a different future.

After the Mountains

The animals Marilou raises today know nothing about the name @Dayen.

They do not know about the years she spent attending meetings, conducting political discussions or moving through communities. Every morning, they simply need to be fed. Every day brings another set of practical concerns: how to care for them, how to maintain the livelihood and how to ensure that the work continues.

Perhaps that is one of the quietest changes in Marilou’s life.

After years spent participating in a movement that sought to change society, she now spends much of her time building something smaller but no less important: a stable life for herself and her family.

There are still memories of the past. There are people and places she will never forget. There are years that cannot be recovered and experiences that remain difficult to explain to people who were never there.

But the future is no longer entirely defined by those years.

Today, Marilou’s life is measured differently. It is found in the work she does each morning, the livelihood she continues to build and the time she now has with her family. It is found in the ordinary concerns of earning enough, caring for what she has and hoping that tomorrow will bring another chance to continue.

For years, she was known as @Dayen.

Today, she is Marilou—a woman rebuilding a life after the years she spent inside a movement, discovering that sometimes the future does not begin with something extraordinary.

Sometimes, it begins with the simple decision to come home and stay.