Blogger's Notes: The following article is a chapter in Teofisto Guingona Jr.'s book "The Gallant Filipinos," which he wrote in 1989. In is book, Guingona, a former senator and vice president, wrote several characters, whom he has regarded as heroes in their own right. One of them is Edgar Jopson, a First Quarter Storm student activist, who later became a key figure in the National Democratic Front, the political arm of the outlawed Communist Party of the Filipinos.
FROM TEOFISTO GUINGONA JR.'S BOOK "THE GALLANT FILIPINOS"
EDJOP – DETERMINED TO THE END
They called him Edjop because the American – German Geometry Jesuit teacher at the Ateneo often tripped each time he called the full name: Edgar Jopson so he shortened the appendage; the name caught on – and everyone called him Edjop ever since.
He stood feet two – almost as short as Napoleon but just as determined. Chubby faced, round body, brilliant mind.
Could have been a good Jesuit – for he had spark and stamina to serve others in faith – instead, the searing challenges of the times led him to serve the people and the communist cause in the National Democratic Front. Could have been a successful businessman, son of a self-made enterprising wealthy grocer whose mantle of heritage he could so easily have taken on yet he ended up literally ceding material wealth to take up the cudgels for the poor. Could have been a statesman, for he was a born leader of men with a vision for wholesome change – but he found himself fighting a dictator from the underground because his frustrations in peaceful reforms led him to believe that revolution was the only answer.
In 1969, Mr. Marcos won re-election on one of the dirtiest elections in Philippine history. In that same year, Ed Jopson, then Management Engineering student at the Ateneo, won the presidency of the National Students Union of the Philippines (NUSP).
The NUSP stood for reforms. The members were moderates compared to radicals like the Kabataang Makabayan earlier founded by Jose Maria Sison. The moderates looked forward to peaceful change. Kabataang Makabayan did not. NUSP wanted a nonpartisan Constitutional Convention called by Congress. Kabataang Makabayan did not because it did not believe that any constituent assembly under the establishment could go against its political and economic interests. Marcos stood in the center of the emerging storm as students from the two leading organizations actively responded to the challenge of deepening crisis. The Marcos reelected had plunged the nation to the rim of bankruptcy. Many factories were on the brink of closing, and the nation’s treasury stood almost empty. Worse, the plunder of reelection – perceived as an overkill to gain victory no matter what the cost – loomed as a black omen of an emerging strongman who would shunt democracy in order to stay in power.
Students from NUSP and KM spoke out. They marched in the streets, held rallies, chanted songs – though with different voices, different meanings.
The first quarter storm erupted on January 26, 1970. Marcos was to deliver the State of the Nation before Congress. NUSP decided to hold a huge rally in front of the Assembly. KM opted to join. At about 5:00 p.m. while Marcos was droning the last paragraphs of his speech, Ed Jopson who acted as emcee announced that the next speaker would be Gary Olivar. But since Olivar was not around, Arienda took over. However the crowd chanted for Olivar, a youth leader identified with the militant Kabataan Makabayan, and Arienda gave the microphone back to Jopson. This time Olivar appeared and Jopson announced his name anew – but sensing trouble from the response of the crowd – he instead asked that they all sing Bayan Magiliw, the National anthem, after which he declared the rally ended. Someone grabbed the microphones to him – and scuffle ensued.
The radicals lambasted Edjop. He encountered saying this was the rally of NUSP, Passions ran high – and KM firebands chanted ‘Rebolusyon, rebolusyon!’
It was then that Marcos came out of Congress. He saw the crowd, caught a glimpse of his own paper effigy being burned – and a cardboard coffin representing ‘the death of democracy in the hands of the ‘goonstabulary’ in the last elections. As the students marched forward, the riot police attacked with frightening ferocity. They wacked furiously with rattan sticks. They lashed at the heads, the arms, the bodies of defenceless students. No distinctions in the melee – whether moderates or radicals. Infiltrators from both camps sparked more violence. The students counterattacked with stones and empty bottles.
Blood flowed freely. A cornered student was pinned down to the windshield of a car – and beaten mercilessly by three riot police until he slumped unconscious. Another had his face gashed, losing all front teeth; a third tried to hide behind a lamppost – but he was drawn out and beaten, breaking his ribs even as he cried for mercy.
Edjop was furious but remained relatively calm. He gave instructions to disperse to safety, then he regrouped with others at the Ateneo Padre Faura to monitor and extend help to the victims.
The tragic battle lasted into the night. From the front of Congress they spilled to the streets fronting the Mini Golf Links – riot police and military chased defence students. There were about seven waves of attacks and intermittent lulls were broken by pandemonium with each ferocious assault.
The next day pictures of the carnage filled the metropolitan papers. Edjop had his baptism of fire – and he carried the wounds of that initial war seriously, analyzing his mistakes, ascertaining the strength of NUSP. He should not blame the KM of their leaders – for that would present a decision against Mr. Marcos. But he resolved to carry on the intended reforms more resolutely.
In the aftermath of that tragedy, President Marcos invited Edjop and NUSP leaders for a dialogue. They met in Malacañang on January 30. It turned sour. After being made to wait for more than an hour, the students in the delayed conference began to stress the need for reforms. The adroit Marcos deftly parried each query even the one as to whether he would desist from extending power beyond his term. He said “I am constitutionally bound not to run for a third term." The determined Edjop was not satisfied. He asked that the statement be signed into writing. Not at all diplomatic – but frank, an honest reflection of the anxiety many felt about the President’s real intentions. In turn, Marcos saw it is an affront. He blew his top. “Who are you to tell me what to do? You are only the son of a grocer.”
Everyone sat in stunned silence as Marcos let out a sarcastic leer. The meeting went kaput. But even if it had gone well, the dialogue could not have proceeded any longer. Outside Malacañang radical students had gathered en masse and were beginning to storm its gates. The meeting ended abruptly, and Edjop and company left Malacañang by ferry across the river.
The dialogue by the moderates broke up in failure, the assault by the radicals would likewise result in bloody catastrophic failure as Marcos inside barked orders for the use of more force.
Although the militant students gained the initiative and were able to crash into Malacañang with the use of a commandeered fire truck, the students had no chance against guns and tanks and bullets of the reinforced Presidential Guards. That ‘Battle of Mendiola’ spilled into the night and early morning – to Claro M. Recto, Divisoria, Espana – armed men hunting students who fled and countered with Molotov’s and whatever weapons they could muster. When the smoke cleared, four students lay dead, many more wounded. Dark omen of things to come.
Yet Edjop’s resolve for reforms remained firm. He fought for clean and honest and honest and non-partisan elections for the Constitutional Convention. He became active in the Citizen’s National Electoral Assembly. He went to Danao and confronted the political warlord of the area at the time, Ramon Durano. He went to Ilocos Sur where guns, goons, gold dominated the political battlefields where no matter what the students did in alliance with church and civic leaders – they could not shake the dreaded fear of the populace. In the end they had to escape the area themselves – or get liquidated in the bloody conflict for power.
The elections to the Constitutional Convention proved disappointing to Edjop. There were independent – minded men and women chosen – but the majority were elected thru partisan leaders, and many delegates allowed themselves to be used by Mr. Marcos – shredding the last vision of hope in the mind of Edjop that his forum could serve as wholesome medium for meaningful change.
The Plaza Miranda bombing of the LP proclamation rally exploded on August 21, 1971, killing scores of people, wounding national leaders like Sergio Osmeña, Jr., Jovito Salonga, Gerardo Roxas. The tide of discontent swelled in favour of the Liberal Party and it won a resounding victory in the November polls.
A few days later, Marcos suspended the writ of habeas corpus.
The discontent swelled. The Liberal Party won a resounding victory in the November polis of that year and almost immediately looked forward to the political battle in the 1973 Presidential elections. Mr. Marcos could not run for President again in 1973 compounded his problems. He ordered his minions in the Constitutional Convention to switch the form of government from presidential to a parliamentary form – thereby removing any obstacle that would prevent him from running anew in his district in Ilocos and grabbing power again as Prime Minister.
On September 21, 1972, Marcos declared martial rule.
That was the last blow for Edjop. Useless to hope for peaceful reforms any longer, he thought. Martial law would make a mockery of human rights, destroy institutions, strengthen the military under Marcos and fuse into one man the awesome power of political, judicial, legislative – and economic dominance over the land.
Edjop had been an ardent moderate. Now he felt frustrated. He did not believe in communism. Now he saw the National Democratic Front in a new light. Perhaps it was the only way.
Edjop’s contacts with the poor as a social worker had led him more and more to align himself with labor. He worked with Ed Nolasco, with the PAFLU, under Cipriano Cid, with union officers and men who were really oppressed. Now with Martial rule imposed, their rights were more suppressed, starting with the removal of the right to strike. How then could the poor worker protect himself? Perhaps the socialist way thru determined militant organization – and eventual revolution was the only answer.
It was not easy. From moderate to radical, from practicing Catholic to committed communist. But even his erstwhile radical enemies in the past – who used to assail Edjop openly before – conceded that Edjop was a sincere man who spoke the truth. More difficult was Edjop’s own battle within himself. Yet even before he joined the NDF, Edjop already lived and worked with workers.
He saw men slave in sweatshops for a measly seven pesos a day. He watched them work in factories without windows, breathing toxic fumes that made them sick without enough money to buy medicines, let alone call for a doctor. He witnessed oppression firsthand. When prices of raw materials rose, the company would absorb the increase.
When the officials wanted bigger representations, the company paid. When they were asked to sponsor special events, the company approved, but when laborers who had slaved as casuals for more than ten years asked the company to make them regular employees so that they would receive regular pay, they were terminated. When they pleaded for better working conditions, they were ignored. When they tried to organize, they were cajoled, threatened with reprisal and dismissal.
Edjop became determined more than ever to help the poor. After Cipriano Cid’s arrest, Edjop was made a member of a triumvirate that took over the PAFLU –but it was he who became most active in union work. He visited workers in farms and factories not only in Metro Manila but all over the country. The more he worked, the more dedicated he grew. And the more he took.
In January of 1974, Edjop married Joy Gloria Ma. Asuncion, a demure pretty woman he had met many years back when they were both students. What marked Joy above others in the eyes of Edjop was her commitment to him to share service to others. They both started out as moderates, both from families relatively well-off. And the strength of their union sprung from the love for each other and for those less privileged like the labor leaders Ka Felicing and his wife.
They were married in simple rites in St. Joseph’s Church in Navotas. They invited about fifty friends and relatives. More than three hundred came. Not the rich, mostly poor simple workers. The parents of Edjop had wanted a big wedding with reception in one of the big five star hotels. Instead the newlyweds welcomed their guests – many of them in plain maong and teeshirts of the workingman. They served Filipino delicacies – pancit malabon, puto, balut, itlog na maalat.. Ninong was no bigshot. Only Ka Felicing, their friend and co-worker in the union.
But to them it meant a real happy wedding. They richly deserved that happiness, for the days ahead would grow grimmer and darker in the lonely struggle to set men free.
La Tondena at the height of martial rule in 1975 characterized many factories. Many works slaved as casuals. Low pay. No job security, no sick leave, no maternity benefits for women. Some had been casuals for ten years. Most were hired only for eight weeks, then either dismissed or rehired under the same terms, bad working conditions – but to top it all, the management imposed a requirement that all employees must pass an I.Q. test and secure clearances from the police, the NBI, and the courts.
The workers were outraged. They saw it as a ploy to dislodge many of them from their already unstable Jobs, especially the militant ones, and to perpetuate the despicable temporary status they had to put up with just to survive. How could they pass an IQ test when many of them had not gone beyond primary grades?
Strikes under martial rile were illegal – but the union voted to strike. Sobra na! Tama na! Welga na!
They turned to the Church Labor Center for advice. Edjop and Father Jalandoni were harnessed to provide counsel. Knowing the perils, they initially advised alternatives to direct strike: work slowdown, sit-downs, etc. but the workers stood fast. They knew the dangers. They knew that armed soldiers would swoop down and detain them or worse shot them down. But one worker summed it all when he said “kailangan ituloy ang welga. Limang taong galit na nasa loob ng aking dibdib and kailangan pumutok bukas. Kung hndi, walang kinabukasan ang ating mga anak.”
It was painful for Edjop and Father Jalandoni because even as they wanted to stand with the strikers they could not reveal themselves openly. All they could do was monitor the movements two blocks away.
The strike started on October 24, 1975. The first defiance against the ban. The first under Martial Law. Priests and nuns and sympathizers gathered across the premises – providing food and medicines and supplies to the strikers, distributing manifestos to the public.
All the machines ground to a halt. Management cut off power but the workers came prepared with lamps and burners. This was no ordinary strike – it was a test of spirit. The workers had many sympathizers, management had many soldiers.
At 9:00 a.m. the first day – police and Metrocom came and told the strikers to lift the strike because it was illegal. The workers – under advice y Edjop and Father Jalandoni asked them to leave. They were merely asserting a right since their strike itself was legal because the law banning strikes covered only workers in vital industries, and a distillery was certainly not an undustry viral to national interest.
The military appeared confused and left. The next day they returned and told the strikers that if they did not lift the strike by midnight they would all be arrested and carted off to detention for violating the curfew. The workers stood their ground as more sympathizers gathered outside to give food and offer prayers.
Shortly after 1:00 a.m. soldiers entered the factory compound with seven Metrocom and one Air Force bus. The workers sang the National Anthem, and even the military had to stop. As soon as the singing stopped they started forcing the workers inside the vehicles. The workers interlocked arms and refused to budge. Priests and nuns and sympathizers outside joined the formation. The military broke formation with guns and trenches. Only the presence of priests and nuns deterred the soldiers from firing and spilling blood. It took more than three hours to force the workers into the buses – and even as they departed, the priests and nuns would not leave them.
One priest and two nuns clung to the door and window bars of two buses almost all the way to Fort Bonifacio.
The workers were booked for violating the curfew but the military could not explain why the other people who had poured into the premises in sympathy of the strike were not also arrested.
And what seemed a defeat turned to victory. Because public sympathy swelled for the strikers, Mr. Marcos backed down. He released the workers, and Don Antonio Palanca himself scrapped the criteria for employment, converted more than 300 ‘veteran casuals’ into regulars and promised to review the cases of those arbitrarily laid off, and to provide medical care to sick workers.
The strike was over. It was a victory of sorts not only for Edjop and Father Jalandoni but for workers as a whole. They had broken the reign of fear generated by martial rule.
By 1977, Edjop was a ranking leader of the revolutionary movement. He was made member of the NDF Preparatory Commission – intended to unite various forces opposing Marcos and Martial Rule – including the moderate sector he had led as a student, into one united front.
In 1978, Mr. Marcos bent to pressure from the US government under Carter to institute reforms. He decided to allow elections for the Interim Batasan Pambansa.
Many opposed to Marcos were caught in a dilemma. To participate would lend to the regime, to boycott would leave the field to Marcos by default. To participate would mean having a forum to speak, to assail the malpractices of the regime, to reveal the truth. To boycott on the other hand would mean allowing the bully to play by his own distorted rules.
The moderates were divided. Ninoy Aquino decided to participate and organized Laban to campaign from his prison cell. Other personalities like Gerry Roxas preferred to boycott.
Edjop was originally for participation, and higher authorities gave tacit approval. So from outside, Edjop helped. Ninoy Aquino from his prison cell spearheaded the organization of LABAN – LAKAS NG BAYAN. It needed 21 fearless men and women who would fight Marocs as candidates for the Interim Batasan seats in Metro Manila. The NDF thru Edjop was able to include some of their own, notably Alex Boncayao, a rough and tumble labor leader who spoke openly against the ills of martial rule.
Lorenzo Tanada became general campaign manager of LABAN and with Ninoy as Captain Ball even behind prison bars, he and twenty others like Soc Rodrigo, Anding Roces, Monching Mitra, Ernie Maceda, Nene Pimentel fought the good fight against the KBL slate headed by none other than Imelda Marcos, with Marcos himself as General Campaign Manger.
The LABAN forces knew that Marcos would never allow them to win. But for the duration of the campaign period, they spoke out. Like a volcano suppressed fir many years, the campaign sparked the fires of truth – and for the first time thousands of Filipinos heard the gory abuses of martial rule under Marcos. The elections were rigged but before Marcos could silence the end of the campaign, the citizenry noise barrage that told the dictator that their hearts and minds stood for LABAN.
When LABAN leaders marched to protest the rigged results after the elections, Marcos Jailed more than six hundred of them, including Lorenzo M. Tañada.
Edjop and the NDF did not participate, withheld support because towards the end of the campaign word reached them from the higher echelons of the CPP that the official policy was to boycott. That belated decision caused a rift within the CPP and Edjop himself was caught in a bind. He believed in participation, had in fact harnessed support for the campaign – yet towards the end they were told to lay off. Some leaders resigned, others asked for transfer. Edjop sulked for a while but eventually accepted and became head of the Manila-Rizal organization.
Edjop was captured on the early morning of June 14, 1979.
Let Edjop himself recount his ordeal, contained in an open letter he subsequently sent to the Filipino people:
“We were arrested at 3 a.m. of June 14th at Periwinkle Street, Talon Village, Las Pinas, Metro Manila. My wife and I rented he house in the last week of March. My wife was not arrested with us because she had just given birth to our second child (Scarlet Vitoria of Joyette) at the time of arrest…
“A group of 20 to 25 officers and men armed with M- 16 Armalite rifles surrounded our house and banged on the door. After five minutes, the raiding team headed by Captain Delfin broke the door lock and forced with way in. they ordered everybody to lie down on the floor…
“The arresting unit manhandled everybody, including my four-year old son, who cried out loud while the arresting unit shoved and kicked us.
“The arresting unit ransacked the whole house, cabinets, suitcases, mattresses. Cash amounting to P6,000 of our five-year savings was confiscated from my wife’s purse. Wallets, handbags and pocket money amounting P700 were likewise confiscated. The wrist watches of some, including Winfred Willamil’s, were likewise confiscated. An aid of a Captain Braganza took my wallet which contained P200 and family pictures. I saw Captain Delfin himself take my wife’s purse with P6, 000 in it. None of these cash amounts were listed officially in the CSU list of Confiscated items…
“We were led straight to the 5th SCU office, adjacent to the gymnasium behind the grandstand in Camp Crame. Upon arrival, I saw some students being interrogated while blindfolded. After a few seconds, I was blindfolded and my son forcibly taken away from me. While my son was crying, Papatayin nila ang tatay ko! (They are going to kill my father!), I was whisked off to the anteroom of the Commanding Officer’s office for interrogation. Since June 1st , Colonel Ishmael Rodrigo (a veteran of the Vietnam war as a project head f Francisco San Juan’s Eastern Construction Company and later on attached to the Green Berets Intelligence Team with the rank of colonel) had replaced Colonel Miguel Aure, the infamous chief of the 5th CSU. (I suspect that he has been transferred or promoted elsewhere, since he still regularly visits Colonel Rodrigo’s secretary, Edna Olazo.)
“Inside the room, I was bombarded with questions by some five men trying to extract information which could lead to the arrest of others. When I refused to cooperate with, I received two fist blows in the chest. Another interrogator pressed his ballpen to my left thigh, my left arm and my chest.
“Interrogation like this was to go on for many days until I got out of CSU. In my first three days of detention, I had a total of only around 10 hours of rest and sleep. The rest of the time was spent on continued interrogation …
“I proudly asserted I have been a national democracy activist, advocating the National Democratic Front’s 10-point program and working under the direction and coordination of the NDF Preparatory Committee.
“I was detained at a time when the vigorous protests of the political prisoners and the broad national democratic movement outside prison had begun to bear fruit. Colonel Rodrigo and his staff tried very hard to pretend that the old 5th CSU with its infamous version of torture and maltreatment had been relatively soft on me …
“(Colonel Rodrigo) was very excited over my arrest. He desperately wanted to erase the 5th CSU stigma exposed by hundreds of political detainees earlier. He wanted to extract tactical and strategic information through the psywar method. To him hinting down suspected subversives and extracting information from them were some sort of sport. Like in The Deer Hunter starring Robert de Niro, he wanted to get suspected subversives with ‘one shot’.
“His patience started running out after the third day. He told me, “We want to use persuasion, but, of course, if this fails, we use the iron fist … The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing … The end justifies the means … You see, good Communists are dead Communists … You (should) never trust Muslims also. Only dead Muslims are good Muslims.”
“That same evening (June 16), torture sessions were intensified. Captain Robert Delfin, Master Sergeant Ricardo, Sergeant Rocky and several others participated in such sessions.
“The next day, when I protested against the torture, Colonel Rodrigo asserted that he was not aware of such torture, Besides, he was not around, if it did occur, he added , “You see, it could have been worse. There are techniques perfected by our counterparts in the US in Europe. It is worse in Russia and China …
“They had begun to use the old CSU method of beating up, stripping, strangulation and electric shock. The first target of this vicious attack were those whom the military thought had no influential relatives: Oscar Armea, a worker from Consolidated Can who hails from a poor peasant family in Lagunoy, Camarines Sur; Doris Manero, a house hold helper from a poor peasant family in the Visayas.
“Oscar was beaten up even in his first few hours of detention. After a few days, this was repeated. He was strangled twice. He was stripped naked. His pubic hair was burned and electric shock was administered on his genitals. Captain Robert Delfin, Major Saldajeno, a lawyer representing JAGO (Judge Advocate General’s Office), C2 (intelligence) office, and Master Sergeant Ricardo, who hails from Marikina, Rizal, led the torturers.
“Doris, on the other hand, was stripped naked and subjected to indignities. Captain Robert Delfin and Master Sergeant Ricardo led the torture of Doris Manero.
“Except for one day with fellow detainees, I was placed in solitary confinement at OIB (Office of the Interrogation Board) headed by Major Toty Poblete. For six hours, I was placed in a bartolina-like cubicle with no ventilation. This was after I joined the protest of other detainees in the evening of the 16th. Every 15 minutes, agent Rocky, after drinking liquor, would enter the cubicle and interrogate and threaten me with the water cure.
“The interrogators would first prepare themselves by drinking a case of beer and several bottles of hard liquor. At about 10:30 p.m., they would start pulling detainees from their beds one by one for interrogation. The detainees would only be returned to their cells usually before sunrise.
“I myself underwent the so-called marathon interrogation. Colonel Ishmael Rodrigo himself interrogated me from 10 a.m. to five in the morning of the next day (20th of June). He only stopped when he himself could no longer keep his eyes open.
“Captain Braganza of NISA used another tactical interrogation trick. After asking questions which I refused to answer, he would dangle pictures of my wife and four-year old son, implying, of course, that harm would come to them if I did not cooperate.”
Edjop’s ordeal continued. Fortunately, his father, who learned of the incarceration thru the released yaya and grandson, went to Camp Crame and asked to see him. After some denials, the officer in charge finally consented – and father and son embraced in tearful reunion. The father was aghast at the appearance of Edjop and Edjop himself tried to make light of the situation – but asked for money.
The father gave, thinking it was to help ease Edjop’s condition inside prison. He did not know that even then, Edjop was already planning escape.
He did it. He knew that the intelligence officials desired to use him as their agent within the CPP. He pretended to be open to the idea. Money helped to win the confidence of his captors, especially the enlisted men.
On June 24, ten days after capture, he was transferred to a safe house in San Francisco del Monte for training. The official line was that he escaped from his cell – but the truth is that along the way, Edjop asked his two friendly escort’s demand that he contract his wife Joy. They stopped by a sari-sari- store with a telephone, in an area familiar to Edjop as a teen-ager. He eluded the waiting escorts and lost himself in the crowd. The escorts desperately pursued him by searching the entire area. But Edjop was free! He headed for the house of PAFLU labor leader he had known in the past who readily gave succor.
Edjop knew that the authorities would intensify a citywide search for him. So he contacted his partymates in the underground. Usually, escaped detainees would no longer be of service to the cause. As a rule they could have been turned loose as informers against the movement.
But not in the case of Edjop. It is to his credit that his sincerity and determination in the past chalked up confidence in the higher echelons of command so that when they got word of his escape, arrangements were immediately made to get him out of Metro Manila.
So in the first week of July, Edjop with two other comrades left Manila for Samal, Bataan. It was there in Barrio San Roque, in the friendly home of Aling Osang where Edjop spent the next two months.
The CPP-NDF had a lot of clout in Samal at the time Edjop went there to seek refuge in July of 1979. It was home to many KASAMAS, where peasants really supported the movement. Edjop, introduced there as Ka gusting, the nephew of Aling Osang, easily found kinship with many of them. Although he was not a farmer, he gamely worked with them in the fields, and even if they suspected that he was a man seeking tentative asylum from the authorities, they opened up to him, not only because the town itself was ‘rebolusinaryo’ but because they found Edjop likable. Joy soon joined him - and for two months they lived the rustic life of the common man. Edjop worked with tenants, ate with bare hands, slept on hard boards – and while he openly answered questions from simple peasants during evening session, perhaps he learned more from them, living their lives.
Edjop’s next chosen assignment was Mindanao. He volunteered, became member of the Mindanao Commission based in Davao. New place, new language, new comrades and new perils. Yet Edjop, now known as Ka Gimo, with a price tag of P180, 000.00 on his head, faced the challenge with greater resolve.
Edjop p was no guerrilyero. He was more of the planner, the thinker, the man who spoke out during sessions with party members and supporters concerning the vision of the movement and the need for change. He was not at home with guns and bullets.
But he had to lift in. he bravely took in the life of guerrillas in the mountains. When food was short and they had to eat snakes, he did so without complaint. When they were on the run – evading military pursuit, he would see to it that he was never a burden to anyone. Instead, his comrades noticed how thoughtful he was for others in the wake of crisis.
When Edjop began helping the Mindanao Commission in the early eighties, the military had already fielded about 20 battalions in Mindanao. Their orders were to hunt down the leaders of the movement and the continuing revolution. Since the military had a big budget, they could avail of a lot of intelligence and farm out overwhelming superiority of men and material against the guerrillas. But what the members of revolutionary forces lacked they more than made up for in guts and fighting spirit – and in the unstinted support given by ordinary folks.
They had to execute a hasty retreat under cover – almost two hundred men and women roused by drones of helicopters and ground troops from below. Many of the CPP-NDF members like Edjop were really non-combatants, and in the excitement, an associate of Edjop got separated from his wife. Under orders, he could not go back. But Edjop covered for him and said “I know how painful it is to be separated from your wife. Go back and find her. I’ll assume your duties going down. “That comrade never forgot Edjop’s kind deed.
Along the way down, the peasants would warn them to go this way, because they had seen soldiers scrounging in the other direction. At another time a helicopter almost caught a group in an opening. But one of the quick thinking peasants, a burly woman who lived there, hastily placed a mat on the ground, quickly spread corn, and told the retreating men and women. “Do not run. Pretend you are farmers sorting corn. Barely seconds after, the helicopter gunship swooped down and hovered above them – so close that many expected the burst of gunfire next. For a painful minute that seemed eternity, the helicopter gunmen above looked below, searching for any sign that the men and women in their target sights were not farmers.
Mercifully, the peril passed, the helicopters drove away – and everyone heaved a big sigh of relief. Salamat sa masa! Salamat sa suporta! Edjop and most of his companions were able to elude the troops back to safe havens.
Yet respite from one peril in the underground is merely deferment for the next danger. Edjop knew this. He was determined never to get caught again. He carried a gun, took the usual precautions, and lived the dreaded life of the hundred.
There were times of course when even the hunter relaxed, when there were lulls between crisis – when Edjop’s wife Joy came to visit with the children from manila. These were moments of supreme happiness for Edjop family. They would spend time in the beaches, go to the movies, stay home and talk and enjoy each other’s love and company. Edjop was striving for lost time, and he took advantage of every minute of their togetherness. He was a real husband and father who wanted to give much more but could not. He agonized each time they said a painful goodbye.
September 20, 1982 was the eve of the anniversary of Martial Law. Edjop lived in Skyline subdivision in Davao at the time, he shared the house with an NDF priest, a couple, and two other comrades. They all worked for the underground. They had sensed signs of trouble and had decided to transfer the next week to another place. But they did not realize that for the past several months the military had actually zeroed in, slowly but systematically pinpointing the place.
That very same evening, the military forces encircled the dragnet. Edjop and one companion came in at 8:00 p.m. from the house of nearby friend, and dentist.
His dentist friend had urged Edjop to spend the night there – because he had earlier seen troop movements in the vicinity of Skyline subdivision. Edjop thanked his friend but said he believed soldiers were merely preparing for the anniversary of martial rule the next day. “No cause for worry.” Said Edjop to his friend. “I’ll come back tomorrow and share some ‘kilawen’ with you. I’d rather stayed the night, “said his doctor friend, “but if you’re really decided on going home, I can’t stop you. I look forward to tomorrow, and make sure we have the needed drinks. Okay bay.” Said Edjop amusingly – tomorrow, late afternoon!
It was the last time his dentist friend would see Edjop.
When they returned to Skyline, Major Nelson Estares, commanding officer of the dragnet decided to act. He sent one of his soldiers to climb into the balustrade to open the gate from inside. The surrounding troopers could see movements inside the house, could see Edjop in short poring over some papers in the living room. No one certainly knew that the dragnet was closing in.
But the soldier ordered to scale the balustrade fell – resulting in a big bang. This alerted Edjop. He looked out and saw the soldiers. He blurted out a warning “nandyan na sila. They’re here. Raid!” Perhaps on impulse, he and another comrade darted to the back to scale the fence and escape in the dark. It was not to be. Edjop’s companion Ka Teddy made it but he did not. Just as Edjop had risen over the fence to jump down, soldiers fired. He fell, mortally wounded. When Major Estares rushed to the tragic spot, Edjop was already in the throes of death. He sustained bullets in his riddled body.
When Joy heard the news at dawn, she hurried to the house of a friend in Davao. She herself could not surface, so the friend went to several funeral parlors. On his third try, he was told that the military had just brought in the broken remains of a short man in short pants. The blood had been stanched and wiped clean but the gory wounds still showed. Jo’s friend easily confirmed Edjop’s identity. When told, Joy sagged weakly and wept profusely. But she remained relatively calm, not hysterical, as if the perils of the past all added up to preparation for such eventual tragedy.
She called up the Edjop residence. In Manila, Edjop’s grieving father took an early flight to Davao to claim his son.
Edjop’s wake took place at the Ateneo where the remains stayed for one day, and three at the UP. It was a tribute to Edjop that men and women from all walks of life came to pay tribute and last respects to a man who died that others might live.
Jose W. Diokno said “Edjop stood by his conviction. We are not gathered here mourn Edjop. Instead we should mourn for ourselves and for a society which has made it necessary for a young man like Edjop to give up his own life.”
Thousands came. The common man from La Tondena. The peasant from Samal. The comrade from the underground. Joy herself came to disguise and was almost apprehended by the secret police of the regime.
Whoever came spoke with one theme – Edjop died help others. He died for his convictions. He died and deserved to live because he was not afraid to die.
On October 1, 1982, Edjop was finally interred. A gallant Filipino laid to rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment