In Praise of an Honorable Man

(Review of Radical Prose, Selected Writings by Antonio Zumel, published by The Friends of Antonio Zumel and the First Quarter Storm Movement, Manila, Philippines; August 2004, pp. 328)

By Ninotchka Rosca
New York City:  2005
Posted by Bulatlat

The sixty-five pieces of Ka (comrade) Antonio Zumel’s writings selected for this collection are grouped into three categories, presumably to represent three major stages of his life:  as a journalist in the Philippine “legal” press; as a revolutionary working in and with the underground national democratic movement in the archipelago and as a revolutionary still working with and in the national democratic movement albeit in an international setting. In addition, there are four interviews with him undertaken by five journalists plus an introduction to each section written by someone who had worked with and presumably again, known him well at that particular stage of his life.

Already a legend when he became president of the National Press Club, Mr. Zumel’s reputation was enhanced when he went underground and was elected chair of the National Democratic Front, an alliance of 17 revolutionary organizations still waging a liberation struggle two decades now in the running.   Three years after his death, stories are still told of the remarkable Antumel (his nickname) by those who knew him, worked with him and even by those who only met him once or twice. The adulation for the late NDF chairman remains universal.  This collection of his writings shows us why, for the character of the man shines through every piece.

Mr. Zumel’s range in subject matter is phenomenal.  Few reporters can move from a commentary on congressional allowances to consumer mathematics to Mao’s China. Mr. Zumel did this with great aplomb, maintaining a prose that is remarkably consistent, considering the rather dramatic changes, not only in subject matter, but in his personal circumstances as well. Whether writing about Christmas or a book review that metamorphosed into an explanation of that complexity known as the Rectification Movement carried out by the national democratic movement in the 1990s, Mr. Zumel’s style remained elegantly simple, devastatingly clear. Using accessible language and unfaltering logic, he honed each piece to be keen as a samurai sword, striking to the heart of a truth, as it were.

This precision in writing, the perfect matching of style and content, is also informed by three things which enable us to see the man behind the essays:  a) an under-current of self-deprecation and humility; b) candor; and c) a desire to communicate so that he could be of service to those his words would reach.

Mr. Zumel’s self-irony – what rendered him immune to “revolutionary conceit”  -- is exemplified by this aside in the essay “Remembrances of the First Quarter Storm of 1970.”

Looking back

For me, it is difficult to think back exclusively to the political events in the first three months of 1970 – the FQS.  Like others, I also tend to look back to the political events of, say, the previous year, 1969, which, after all, helped prepare for and culminate in, the FQS (actually, according to Comrade Jose Maria Sison, I took a whole decade to prepare for the FQS)… (p. 231)

This was in reference to his “tardy” involvement in the people’s movement, whose members at the time were mostly in their 20s-30s.

In “Revolutionary Consolidation Reaches a New High Point,” Mr. Zumel readily admits his error in “allow(ing) myself to be swayed into supporting a position that there be no mention of Party leadership in the NDF’s basic documents…” Small as his role was in the tragic errors of the 1980s, Mr. Zumel’s humility is in sharp contrast to those directly involved in – but continue to evade responsibility for -- the murderous rampage of Kampanyang Ahos (anti-infiltration campaign).

Again and again, in various pieces, Mr. Zumel admits readily to imperfections. Even the matter of his divorce from his first wife, he ascribes as “due largely to my own faults and shortcomings.”  In the short autobiographical piece “Our People’s Interest Comes First,” Mr. Zumel candidly writes that as a journalist of the corporate press, his “political standpoint … was bourgeois liberal” and that although he tried to “keep (his) nose clean…” he was “not totally free of the corruption” afflicting the bourgeois liberal press, both then and now.

This candidness and humility are not reverse vanity but rather fueled by the wish to underscore the transformative power inherent in the people’s movement, the people’s struggle.  It is this passion that underlies his writings, this hope and wish for others to reach the same path he had reached to truth and purpose worthy of a human life.  In a 2001 speech delivered on his first trip to the Philippines after 12 years of exile, Mr. Zumel spoke of the sense of fulfillment brought by the realization that the Filipino people continue to struggle for liberation:

Getting old

“Those of us who joined the movement in its infancy in the late 1960s or early 1970s are getting on in years.  Among the most senior in years compared to the young people in our movement, I am myself approaching my 69th year and will soon be gone.

“Those of us who are getting on in years can only look with satisfaction and pride on the swelling ranks of the revolutionary movement that now fights for our people’s national and democratic rights, and in the future, for socialism.”

Two curious items in the book explain why Mr. Zumel’s self-ironic nickname KPR (katawang pangromansa, body for romance) was readily accepted as fitting even by the most militant of women. The first is an essay on five people martyred in the struggle against the Marcos Dictatorship.  Mr. Zumel used the penname Puri Balando, in honor of two women, Puri Pedro and Liza Balando, both also killed by the Philippine military.  For a person of authority in the people’s movement to use a woman’s name, made up though that may be, was quite rare.

The second is an off-hand observation about the NDF leaders’ appearance at the National Press Club, just one sentence embedded in a report by Benjamin Pimentel:  “(Zumel) had a purple ribbon tied to his right wrist, purple being the new protest color decreed by the women’s groups.”   The charm of such non-macho-ness cannot be overstated.  Emi de Jesus, secretary-general of GABRIELA Philippines, meeting Zumel just once, summed up her impression of the man: uliran  -- Tagalog for role model but more than a model, as the word also connotes something pure, quintessential, the ideal comrade.

Readers undoubtedly will have their own favorite piece or two.  Three pieces for this reviewer will resonate through time:  “Lest We Forget: U.S. Imperialism Killed a Million Filipinos,” “Ferdinand Marcos: Case Study of a Puppet Fascist Dictatorship,” and “Consolidating For Bigger Struggles Ahead.”  And ironically, an NDF detractor will likely end up immortalized by a Zumel piece, for the conciseness of defense, response and explanation that the latter makes.

On Mr. Zumel’s last return to exile, this reviewer was fortunate enough to have been in Holland and thus was able to ask him how he was. Mr. Zumel – to call him Ka Tony would be extreme hubris for this reviewer; he was of a totally different category of humanity altogether – replied that he felt bad; he was so sick. “I’m so weak I’m useless.  I can’t serve the movement anymore. I am a burden to the kasamas (comrades).”

He was wrong, of course. He served; he still serves; he will continue to serve the people’s movement. Bulatlat

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