HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH

Ka Bel: 24 Years Ago and Back

“I have been unjustly jailed without seeing any hope for freedom and justice. But my resolve remains strong, and I remain hopeful that the causes and the ends that we are fighting for will triumph, along with the masses.” – "Unjustly" jailed party-list congressman, Crispin Beltran

By Lisa Ito
Bulatlat

Labor leader Crispin Beltran and wife Rosario in detention, 1980s, and at "prison hospital" at present

August 18, 2006 passed quietly and uneventfully in collective memory. But for Anakpawis (Toiling Masses) Rep. Crispin “Ka Bel” Beltran and his wife Rosario “Ka Osang” Soto-Beltran, it marked a day, exactly 24 years ago, when they first tasted how it was to be detained under a dictatorship.

Ka Bel, now 73 and a second-term party list solon, has seen worse days as a veteran activist.  But for Ka (kasama or comrade) Osang, Ka Bel’s continuing detention at the Philippine Heart Center in Quezon City on charges of rebellion and sedition by the Department of Justice (DoJ) is no different from the torturous time when he was jailed as an up-and-coming labor leader by the dictatorship, way back in 1982.

Victim of a labor crackdown  

The early 1980s were tumultuous for the Philippine militant labor movement. Newly-founded workers’ organizations held huge demonstrations against the dictatorship while nationwide strikes over unfair labor practices and laws crippled major industries in 1981 forcing the American Chamber of Commerce to sound the alarm.

Reactions such as this from the U.S. business community led the dictatorship to clamp down further on the militant workers sector. On the eve of former President Ferdinand Marcos’s state visit to the U.S. on August 13, 1982, a massive labor crackdown was enforced to pre-empt a purported “September Terror Plot” against the administration. At around 10:30 p.m., agents of the Philippine Constabulary – Metropolitan Command (PC-Metrocom) arrested Felixberto “Ka Bert” Olalia, then 78 and the first chair of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU or May First Movement).

Beltran, then 49 and acting secretary general of KMU, was able to dodge the dictatorship’s dragnet that night. “Nang sumabog ang balita (ng crackdown) sa media, nag-‘UG’ (underground) na ako. Palipat-lipat kami at hindi na umuwi sa aming mga bahay. Minsan, naranasan naming matulog sa isang tindahan ng baboy sa Divisoria” (When news of the crackdown came out in the media, I went ‘underground’. We transferred from one place to another and didn’t go home. Once, we spent the night at a meat shop in Divisoria), he recalls.

This mobility bought a little more time for Beltran, who was the next target of the state police. Ka Osang recalls how their cramped home in Gao, Fairview was raided the day after.

“Agosto 14 nang madaling-araw, sinalakay din ng mga armadong naka-damit sibilyan ang aming bahay. Hinanap ang aking asawa’t tinutukan ng armalite sa tulugan ng aking anak na lalaki at isang pamangkin. Hinalughog hanggang kasulok-sulokan ang buong bahay, at nang walang makuha’t wala rin ang aking asawa’y, pilit na pinaaamin na siya’y itinatago namin at kung saan,” she said. (Armed men in civilian clothes raided our house early morning of August 14. They were looking for my husband and even poked an armalite at the bed where my son and a nephew were. They searched the entire house, and when they found nothing and nobody, tried to force us into admitting that we were hiding him and divulge his whereabouts.)

Beltran, however, would eventually fall into the hands of the military four days later. At around 6:30 p.m. on August 18, 1982, PC men led by Col. Rolando Abadilla caught up with Beltran and arrested him during a press conference on the labor crackdown, at the Jade Vine Restaurant along United Nations Avenue, Manila.

The arrest happened so fast, Beltran recalls, despite the security precautions he took. Less than five minutes after he entered the restaurant, PC men barged in and knocked him out, effecting his arrest and capture in a matter of seconds.

“Pinompyang ako (ni Abadilla) gamit ang butt ng .45 caliber (na baril) at ng kanyang kaliwang kamay...Nawalan ako ng malay, mga tunog lang ng siren ang naaalala ko. Paggising ko, nabasa ko na nasa bandang Santolan na kami”  (Using both hands, Abadilla hit me between the ears with one hand using a butt of  a .45 caliber gun…I lost consciousness and all I heard next were the sounds of a siren. When I woke up, I saw that we were the Santolan), he said.

“Alam ko na papunta na ako sa Crame,” he said. (I knew that I was going to Camp Crame.)

Period of trials  

His arrest on August 18 plunged Ka Bel and Ka Osang into one of the most difficult and nightmarish periods of their lives that neither would forget two decades after.

Charged with inciting to sedition and for conspiracy to commit rebellion (exactly the same charges leveled against Beltran today) “in connection with a reported plan of subversives to launch bombings, strikes, and other terroristic activities,” Ka Bel together with Ka Bert was jailed in solitary isolation, in 2 x 4 meter cells inside Camp Crame, the PC ‘s national headquarters.

Three months later, Beltran was transferred to the PC Stockade as the legal battle for liberty dragged on at a torturous pace. Of the 52 political detainees at the Stockade, 35 were trade unionists, including PISTON leader Menardo Roda. Many other activists languished in jail at Bicutan, Fort Bonifacio, and Camp Aguinaldo, including Satur Ocampo, now Bayan Muna (people first) congressman.  

Beltran says that he was more fortunate than the other detainees, who were subjected to intense physical torture while in confinement.  

“We, the trade union detainees, were spared the taste of physical torture,” Beltran wrote in a letter Feb. 18, 1984. “But we got dosages of psychological torture in many forms. One is the usual prodding, either directly said to us or through our relatives, that at least we forget about all our principles and organizations and cooperate or switch loyalty to the fascist camp, point a finger of accusation against our fellow trade unionists and gain immediate liberty plus a good lifestyle.” 

Jail conditions were deplorable, too. “We have been treated as maximum security prisoners…One was in leg irons. Food rations are so inferior in quality and quantity as to be rejected even by our puppy. Ventilation, sanitation, water supply and lighting facilities have been dismal,” he recalled. “We sometimes have to contend with some abusive and rude jail custodians as well as maintain a respectable relationship between us and the common criminals, mostly PC-INP and military personnel with charges like robbery-holdup with murder, rape and drugs,” he added.

Family woes

For Ka Osang, Beltran’s incarceration was a period of extreme emotional and material hardship for his family. At the time, there was an active demolition threat against the GAO slum community where they lived. She also had to wake up each day at around 4 a.m. to wash clothes or sell slippers and other wares in the market for the children’s needs.  Often having no more money left for the fare to Camp Crame, she would walk all the way to the headquarters from Fairview afterwards. 

“Mantaking kahit na hindi pa nakakulong at nasa hanap-buhay pa ang aming asawa’y talagang dahop na, ngayon pa kaya?” she said (Even if they were not yet imprisoned and were still working, we were already hard-up—how much more today?). 

But the poverty they experienced paled in comparison to the emotional anguish Beltran’s absence left on the family.

“Ang pinaka-malupit na epekto ng detensyon ay nasa disoryentasyon ng pamilya, lalo na sa mga musmos na bata: tanong nga ng aking bunso - ’Bakit matagal na nang hindi siya pinauuwi? Guwardiyado pa sila ng mga nakabaril, bakit Mama, makasalanan ba siya?”, she said (The most cruel effect of the detention was the disorientation it brought to our families, especially to our children: my youngest child asked - Why hasn’t he been allowed to go home for so long? Armed men are even guarding him, why Mama, has he committed any crime?)

Even so, they were still more fortunate than other victims of the regime, Ka Osang said.

“Kaming mga pamilya nila’y laging naging bahagi na ng pagpapahirap, pananakot, at panunupil na dinadanas ng milyong mamamayan. Ngunit, mas magaan pa nga ang paghihirap namin kung ihahambing sa ibang napakatagal na sa kulungan, tinorture, at ang iba’y tuluyang pinatay,” Ka Osang said (The political detainees’ families have always been part of the hardship, harassment, and repression experienced by millions of people. Yet our hardships are more bearable compared to those who have been "unjustly" jailed for so long, tortured, and some even eventually murdered.)

Hunger strikes  

“We waged our own struggles behind bars,” Beltran says of his incarceration at Crame. In protest against their unjust detention and continuing political repression, the prisoners in the Crame stockade staged four fastings and hunger strikes in three years.

Their hunger strikes usually lasted for three days. But their longest protest was from December 1 to December 22, 1982, when they demanded the immediate release of the 35 trade union leaders, women political detainees, and an end to the arrests, intimidation, tortures, salvaging and hamletting by the regime.

The protest fastings eventually yielded political gains. “Of the original 52 political prisoners in 1982, 36 have already regained temporary liberty, 30 of whom are identified with the trade union group. They were released in trickles from January 1 1983 to January 25, 1984,” Beltran wrote in February 1984.  

The “poldets” (short for political detainees) also tried to supplement their family needs through craftsmaking. By February 1983, they started producing “tambo” (a household sweeper) articles through a Cooperative Productive Project, “in order to be less of a burden to our families who are already on the brink of starvation”.

“Nadagdagan nito ang kaunting kinikita sa aming paglalako ng palanggana at iba pang  karaniwang gamit ng pamilyang mahihirap,” Ka Osang says of their efforts. (It contributed to the meager income we wives earned by selling tubs and other items used by poor families.)

Hope for freedom  

As the months of detention dragged on, it became painfully evident to Ka Bel that justice would be elusive under the dictatorship. The labor leader escaped from prison in 1984 and sought refuge among the peasants of Central Luzon.

Beltran eventually won back the liberty he risked his life for. After People Power toppled the Marcos dictatorship in February 1986, he was offered general amnesty by the new government. The charges of sedition and rebellion against him were eventually dismissed by the courts for lack of merit.

Ka Bel went on with the struggle for workers rights, assuming the leadership of the KMU after Lando Olalia, Ka Bert’s son, was abducted and brutally murdered in November 1986. He would later on head the KMU, the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, and the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) as chair before winning a seat in Congress under Bayan Muna in 2001 and AP in 2004.

The elder Olalia, however, did not live to see freedom. With his health deteriorating after two weeks in solitary confinement, Olalia was transferred to the Camp Crame Hospital Room 1, exactly in the same room where Ka Bel spent nearly two months in confinement last March. He was later transferred to the V. Luna Hospital, where he died under house arrest on December 4, 1983.

History repeats itself, they say. Twenty-four years after that fateful afternoon on August 18, 1982, Beltran finds himself in the late Felixberto Olalia’s shoes: detained by a new dictatorship, struggling against illness under police custody, falsely charged with rebellion, and yet firm on regaining freedom and justice.

Nearly six months have passed since Ka Bel was illegally arrested and arbitrarily detained by the Arroyo administration on February 25, 2006, yet there are no indications that the government is willing to set him free, or to even let him attend Congress’ last 100 days of session. Despite yearning to escape again like what he did in the 1980s, Ka Bel says that he will not do so in deference to his oath of office as a duly-elected congressman.

Whenever Ka Osang feels despondent over what seems to be another long struggle under a new dictatorship, she always finds strength in a letter that Ka Bel wrote while in the PC-INP Stockade on May 26, 1983:

“Mula noong ika-18^th ng Agosto 1982…ako’y nakakulong nang walang nababanaag na kalayaan at katarungan. Ngunit nananatiling malakas ang aking kalooban at buhay ang pag-asa na magwawagi ang simulain na ipinaglalaban natin, kasama ang sambayanan,” he wrote (Since the 18^th of August, 1982…I have been unjustly jailed without seeing any hope for freedom and justice. But my resolve remains strong, and I remain hopeful that the causes and the ends that we are fighting for will triumph, along with the masses). Bulatlat

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