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.)
