BOOK REVIEW

Humanizing the Name

Armando
Author: Jun Cruz Reyes
Publisher: Amado V. Hernandez Resource Center
Non-fiction
189 pages

“There are no supermen in history, only leaders who became great because they were working with and for the people.” These were the words of late historian and social critic Renato Constantino. In Armando, Jun Cruz Reyes shows the revolutionary leader Armando Teng as being deeply human, one who became great not because he was a superman but because he strove to surpass his limitations and lived his life so that others may live like real humans.

BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat

Communist leaders Jose Maria Sison and Gregorio “Ka Roger” Rosal would occasionally mention his name in media interviews; and when they do so, it would invariably be with the air of high respect.

But beyond that, little has been known of Armando Teng, a leader revered by those in the national-democratic revolutionary movement who were directly able to rub elbows and work with him, and very well loved by his relatives and friends. Armando, a new book by multi-awarded writer Jun Cruz Reyes published by the Amado V. Hernandez Resource Center (AVHRC) in cooperation with the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs of the University of the Philippines (UP), attempts to reveal the man behind the mist of mystery that has surrounded him even years after his death.

Teng was born to a middle-class family in Tanza, Cavite. Despite his being from a quite well-off family, he is said to have been able to make friends with everyone – especially those from less fortunate families.

As a student he was frequently described as brilliant, even as he was somewhat lax in his schoolwork in his high school years. He showed signs of high conviction even then, having led a walk-out during his high school graduation as a protest against the school’s choice of valedictorian, whom he believed to have attained his rank not because of academic excellence but because of his privileged social status.

He was first exposed to activism as a freshman at the University of Santo Tomas (UST). He transferred the following year to UP where he became a member of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM or Patriotic Youth) in 1970. He later quit his studies to go full-time into activism.

Later on he moved from legal activism to underground revolutionary work, eventually joining the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) shortly before the declaration of martial law in 1972.

A tribute to Teng released by the CPP in November 2000, a few days after his death, states that he rose to the top leadership of the Party – as a member of its Central Committee, Political Bureau, and Regional Party Committee in Southern Tagalog. He is described in the tribute as “a great revolutionary proletarian leader and hero, one of the most steadfast and most successful advocates of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.”

Teng is particularly said to be distinguished in the national-democratic revolutionary movement by his prominent role in what is called the Second Great Rectification Movement. He is said to have struggled mightily against the purges of suspected deep-penetration agents from the CPP, and personally sought out the victims to convince them to return to the fold of the movement.

The speeches by his wife Ada and his friend Mon Veluz at the book’s launching at UP last June 27 uncover Teng’s lighter side.

Ada described him as having a great sense of humor, fun to talk with, but at the same time one who can hold on to his convictions with determination in the face of the enemy. Veluz, meanwhile, said Teng was “a simple man with a warrior’s spirit,” one who exhibited self-mastery, an excellent leader with focus, one who was passionate and took to his work with intensity, but also a patient one who listened to the views of others and would not speak without being sure of what he had to say.

These and more are shown in Reyes’ biography of the man, through anecdotes culled from Teng’s life – from his boyhood all the way to his last moments, as he was dying from a kidney ailment.

The book is not written in the manner that a biography is usually expected to be done, as a chronological account from the sole viewpoint of the biographer. Rather, it is more a collection of several accounts on Teng from different people: his relatives, his former schoolmates, his comrades in the legal activist movement and in the underground revolutionary movement.

The accounts, Reyes says in his introduction, were gathered from interviews conducted by Ada and two others whom he identified only as Yolanda and Morena. Here is how Reyes describes the Armando Teng that emerged through the interviews:

Isang importanteng kadre na naitago ng kilusan sa media, na dapat kong ipakilala. Ibang klaseng kadre, witty at may sense of humor, hindi yung alam nating grim and determined. Hindi yung cliche na nababasa natin sa komiks o sa dyaryo ni napapanood sa pelikula, na basta NPA, may tali sa buhok, kasi mahaba. May bigote at parang si Paquito Diaz kung tumawa, iyon ay kung makukuha pang tumawa, dahil dapat ay namumutiktik sa slogan kapag ibinuka nya ang kanyang bibig. Tao si Armando na matatag ang pagtapak sa lupa. Marunong malungkot at magalit. Umibig din at nasaktan. Higit sa lahat, masayahing rebolusyonaryo.

(An important cadre whom the movement was able to keep from the media. A different type of cadre, witty and with a sense of humor, not the kind that we know of, the grim and determined kind. Not the cliche we read about in the comics and newspapers, or see in the movies, who seem to tell us that New People’s Army guerrillas should have long hair pulled back in a ponytail, a moustache and should laugh like Paquito Diaz – if he can still manage a laugh, because he is supposed to be letting out slogans each time he opens his mouth. Armando was a human being who had his feet firmly planted on reality. He knew sadness and anger. He also loved and was hurt. Above all, a cheerful revolutionary.)

In Armando we once again come face to face with the lightness of tone that is characteristic of most of the work of Reyes, be they novels or short stories or feature articles or even documentary essays. The very conversational tone of the narrative does much to uncover the very human being behind the revered revolutionary icon.

In so doing, however, Reyes does not negate the heroism and greatness attributed to the man that was Armando Teng. No, far from it.

What Reyes achieves in this book is to bring Teng closer to the millions of ordinary people to whom he dedicated most of his life and all of his best years – to show him to them not as some Superman but as one who could have been their father, their brother, their son. That way, it becomes infinitely easier for them to recognize and appreciate his greatness.

“There are no supermen in history, only leaders who became great because they were working with and for the people,” the late historian and social critic Renato Constantino once said.

In Armando, Jun Cruz Reyes shows the revolutionary leader Armando Teng as a being deeply human, one who became great not because he was a superman but because he strove to surpass his limitations and lived his life so that others may live like real humans. Bulatlat

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