On September 21, 1981, 25 years after his death, the Sandinista government of Nicaragua declared Rigoberto López Pérez a National Hero by means of Decree no.

López was instantly killed in a hail of bullets and Somoza died a few days later in the Panama Canal Zone hospital.

Unluckily, the FSLN's "Rigoberto Lopez Perez" Western Command was captured in full in a safe house in the suburbs of Leon and killed in captivity by dictator Somoza's forces.

After the Sandinista victory in July, the Estadio Nacional Anastasio Somoza in Managua, used as a venue for baseball and football as well as concerts and other events, was named after Lopéz.

In Italy, in the 1970s, Marcello De Angelis, now parliamentarian of PDL, who then was a songwriter engaged in the political movement Third Position, wrote a song dedicated to López, whose title is "Il poeta" (The Poet).