MANILA — A life well-lived means a death well-honored.

“Our beloved Ka Trining was brave and full of love for the oppressed. She was steadfast in opposing the rise of another dictatorship (in) our country,” Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto (SELDA) in a tribute statement for Trinidad “Trining” Herrera-Repuno.

Trining, an urban poor activist and Martial Law survivor, died on April 19 at the age of 83. She was chairperson of SELDA in 2017 and a founding convenor of the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses and Martial Law (CARMMA) in 2016.

“Ka Trining was deeply committed to organizations that stood against martial law because she was one of the mass leaders who fought against the dictatorship. Because of this, she was imprisoned multiple times and endured severe torture,” SELDA added in Filipino.

In 1970, Trining was chairperson of Zone One Tondo Organization (ZOTO), comprising 13 community organizations in Tondo. In less than a year, the membership of the organizations increased to 5,00o families. She said in an earlier interview with Bulatlat that women could lead the people, inspiring her in campaigning for their right to housing.

Read: Trining Herrera and her memories of the urban poor struggle under martial law

“Under Ka Trining’s leadership, they bravely resisted Imelda Marcos’ beautification projects that would demolish homes and evict thousands of people living in the affected communities. They fought for their basic right to decent housing,” SELDA added.

Tondo communities, under the leadership of ZOTO, were among those who defied Martial Law in its first weeks. On November 17, 1972, or around two months after the declaration, around 5,000 members of ZOTO marched to Malacañang to assert the right to housing. The Marcos Sr dictatorship responded with a violent tone when six leaders, including Trining, were arrested. She was freed not long after.

The problem on the right to housing of Tondo communities continued. In 1973, they opposed a World Bank project, in partnership with the Marcos Sr administration, which could affect thousands of urban poor families.

Trining’s active participation in the urban poor struggle made her a pain in the neck of the Marcos Sr administration. In 1975, she was invited to attend a gathering in Vancouver, Canada. She said in a previous Bulatlat report, “But instead of getting an exit permit, an arrest and seizure order was issued to get me.”

SELDA said that Trining was among the witnesses in the class suit filed against the Marcos family in 1986 in Honolulu, Hawaii where the former dictator and his family fled during the people’s uprising. They said that her testimony in the Hawaii court was “one of the strongest foundations for the court’s favorable ruling that held Marcos and his cronies accountable for the thousands of human rights violations during that dark chapter in the nation’s history.”

In 1995, the Federal Court of Hawaii found Marcos Sr guilty of grave human-rights violations and awarded $2 billion in compensatory damages to the victims. There were 9,539 complainants in the class suit against the Marcoses.

Trining was also among those who campaigned for the recognition and indemnification for the victims of Martial Law, which led to the enactment of the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act in 2013. She also filed a petition in the Supreme Court to oppose the burial of Marcos Sr. in the Libingan ng mga Bayani in 2016. (RTS, DAA)