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Defying
the Dictatorship
Most
of today’s generation could easily discuss the full story of the popular
television series Meteor Garden, or readily give the names of the 17 members of
the Sexbomb girls, a well-known dancing/singing group. Sadly however, only a
handful could discuss what the historic First Quarter Storm was all about or
identify one of the many who fought Marcos’ martial law regime.
BY
DABET CASTAÑEDA
Bulatlat.com
Indeed
there were thousands who dared to defy the Marcos dictatorship. The more
well-known ones, like Rafael Baylosis, Edgar Jopson, Eman Lacaba and Liliosa
Hilao, are publicly recognized and applauded. There are others though who may
not have been as potent student leaders as Jopson and Baylosis or as eloquent
writers as Lacaba and Hilao, but who also gave their all during martial rule.
Bulatlat.com
interviewed three of them, partly to help the young generation get to know their
country’s past better, and partly to give recognition to the nameless
thousands who, in one way or another, contributed to the Philippine struggle for
democracy.
Ricardo
“Exzur” Lardizabal, Jr.: From altar boy to activist
Exzur
was barely 13 years old when he became a member of the Kabataang Makabayan
(Nationalist Youth) -Kamuning Chapter. He came from a religious family and was
serving as an altar boy in a Catholic church when he met KM’s community
organizers. He was then a freshman at the San Sebastian College in Manila.
“After
praying the rosary,” recounted Exzur, “they would come forward and tell us
about the news of the day and invite us to their activities. At first, they
turned me off because I thought they were just a bunch of rowdy kids from the
streets. But when I saw how they
were able to tame and organize a group of gangsters, I started to see them in a
different light.”
His
first violent encounter with riot policemen was during the May 1 massacre near
the Philippine Congress in Manila. Exzur vividly remembers the death of two of
his companions. The incident,
however, caused his parents to worry and sent Exzur to his father’s hometown
in Ilocos Sur.
Exzur
thus spent the rest of his summer vacation with his grandfather, a local
veterinarian. But instead of making
him forget his commitment, his trip strengthened only it.
He
saw first hand the hardship in the countryside – the absence of schools and
medical services and the peasants unable to own the land they have tilled for
decades.
“It
was also through my lolo that I begun to concretize the meaning of serving the
people. He would treat our
neighbors’ animals without getting paid a single sent,” he said.
Exzur
then got in touch with the KM organizers in the region and at the age of 14
became the founding chair of KM-Ilocos Sur.
When
news of his renewed involvement reached his parents, Exzur was called back to
Manila. It was just before martial law was declared. Exzur continued to be a
member of KM-Kamuning, even when the organization went underground after Marcos
issued Presidential Decree 1081 which placed the entire country under martial
law.
On
April 6, 1978, the day before the elections, Exzur and 14 of his comrades were
captured after a campaign sortie for the opposition’s Laban Party.
“We
led the noise barrage and marched to Camp Crame and Aguinaldo. We did not
realize we were being monitored by intelligence agents,” he said.
Their
groups was arrested along E. Rodriguez Avenue by then Captains Panfilo Lacson,
Romulo Sales and Robert Ortega Sr. who were all notorious for salvaging
activists. Exzur was detained for three months.
After
his release, he became a member of SELDA, an organization of former political
detainees, and was a founding member of the National League of Filipino Students
(now the League of Filipino Students). He
said his political activities were “tempered a bit” when he got married in
1986. He however resumed his active
membership in SELDA in the late 90s as one of its community organizers.
Exzur
now serves as chairman of the board of a peasant group called Community
Livelihood through Agricultural Mechanization Program or CLAMP which is based in
Tarlac. CLAMP seeks to develop agricultural machineries to help improve the
means of agriculture in the country.
Aurelio “Boy”
Quijano: The street fighter
Extreme
poverty forced Ka Boy to stop going to school and find work as a construction
worker at the age of 16. His own
family’s poverty opened his eyes to the political and economic issues that
beset the country. Ka Boy was 18
years old when he started to join community teach-ins and became a member of the
Samaha ng Demokratikong Kabataan (SDK) in 1971.
Ka
Boy considers himself as “one of the boys” or those who engaged in dangerous
“encounters” in the street.
In
1972, at the so-called “Battle of Mendiola,” Ka Boy was part of the
composite team (usually the advance team in a mass action) that took over a fire
truck and rammed it through Malacañang’s Gate 7.
In
1974, during a student demonstration in Bustillos (a street near Malacañang),
policemen fired at the demonstrators and shot a guy they call “Alyas Bimbo”
right in the head. Narrated Ka Boy, “He was dead on the spot. Our emotions
were running high and everyone went mad. Before we knew it, we were setting the
traffic outposts and traffic lights on fire.”
That
same year, members of the Metrocom, the local police force, caught him in Plaza
Miranda. They beat him up before throwing him back to the sidewalk.
Until
the 1980s, Ka Boy actively participated in the struggle against Marcos and
worked as the 2nd vice-chair of the Kapisanan ng mga Anakpawis ng
Maynila, an urban poor organization.
Through
his involvement, Ka Boy remained a responsible family man. He also brought his
wife and children along during rallies and teach-ins so they would understand
what he was doing.
Even
after Marcos fled in 1986 during Edsa 1, the popular uprising that ended the
dictatorship, Ka Boy remained supportive of the protest movement, welcoming
community organizers who visited them.
His
leadership and influence in Balik-Balik, Sampaloc, a district of Manila, earned
him the barangay chairmanship in 1997. He
also now heads the local chapter of Bayan Muna and is vice-chair of the First
Quarter Storm Movement-Sampaloc Chapter.
Albert Garcia:
Always an organizer
Albert
joined the KM in 1970. He was then
a senior taking up BS Psychology at the Far Eastern University (FEU). He linked
up with students from the Philippine College of Commerce (now Polytechnic
University of the Philippines) and the University of the East (UE).
He
was a participant in demonstrations which were violently dispersed – the
reason why he learned to make pillboxes. “We were defenseless. We decided we
had to have something to defend ourselves,” Albert said.
After
graduation, instead of finding a lucrative job, Albert decided to become an
organizer. Among those he helped organize were factory workers at a company
called General Textiles in Libis, Quezon City.
“We
anticipated the declaration of martial law when the writ of habeas corpus was
suspended a few months before. Thus, even before martial law was declared, we
had already organized several communities which supported us,” he said.
Albert
smiled when he remembered how the masses protected him and treated him as their
own. One time, he said, he was
mistaken by policemen as a drug addict because he was very thin. Several cops came up to him and said, “Adik ka no!”
The jeepney drivers quickly came to his rescue and told the police he was
a relative and never an addict.
“Another
moment I could not forget was when an old woman gave me a shirt of his son after
she saw me wearing a shirt which had KM on it,” says Albert. The old woman was afraid that Albert would be arrested if he
wore the KM shirt.
But
in 1974, Albert was captured along España street in Manila. He was detained at
the Youth Rehabilitation Center for a year. The torture he suffered dealt him a
displaced jaw from which he suffers to this day. But throughout his torture, he
said remembered the line from Mao Zedong: “Surmount all difficulties, win more
victories.”
After
his release, he, like all other ex-detainees, was ordered to report to Camp
Crame every week. “But that scheme did not take long because the people from
Crame realized they were giving us the chance to see each other and therefore
renew our contacts,” grinned Albert.
In
1976, Albert went back to school and took up a masteral degree in Social Work at
the University of the Philippines. After
graduation, he worked as a community organizer for the Office of the Mayor of
Makati.
Albert
was one of the convenors of the Erap Resign Movement right in Pres. Joseph
Estrada’s turf, San Juan. He is
also an active member of the FQSM and SELDA.
The
martial law veteran has a few words for his countrymen: “Isang milyong
kilometro na ang sinabi tungkol sa martial law pero isa lang ang sinasabi ng
ating karanasan: hindi tayo dapat lumimot. Pero hindi lang tayo dapat umalala,
dapat tayong patuloy na maging bahagi ng pakikibaka para sa demokrasya sa ating
bayan. (A lot has been said about martial law but our experiences tell us
one thing: we should not forget. But
we should not just remember, we should forever take part in the continuing
struggle for our nation’s democracy.)” Bulatlat.com
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