Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo
change in the system—ideas about revolution. Teachers and students all over the city read Renato Constantino, Hernando Abaya, and other nationalist writers. These authors wrote Philippine history from a viewpoint different from that espoused in standard textbooks that simply presented a chronological account of events in language that would have gratified any colonial censor. These nationalist writers talked about the invasion by foreign exploiters, a people’s subjugation and slavery, and the Filipinos’ attempts to throw off the foreign yoke, only to be repeatedly frustrated by force with the help of local collaborators.
These writers awakened in me a dormant patriotism. After all, our grade school teachers had raised us on anecdotes about Rizal, Mabini, Luna, and other heroes of the 1896 revolution. The new nationalist literature also reawakened in me a compassion I’ve always had for the common folk. Such feelings went back to my grade school days in Iloilo City, where half of my playmates were the children of rice mill workers. I came to understand that the lot of the common man had been hard in colonial times and remained so in the post-World War II period.
But while many young people, particularly students, were ready to pull out all the stops in their activism, like dropping out of school to become full-time organizers, my personality, background, and head-of-family status held me back. I was a cautious and nervous person. I was used to routine and did not easily adapt to new situations. I was excited by the prospect of change but also fearful that the status quo in Philippine society that I associated with my happy childhood would be upset.
I had been raised a “practicing Catholic.” My mother and her family were devout Catholics; my father’s family was devoutly Protestant, but he converted to Catholicism before marriage. I was steeped in a traditional Catholicism where on Good Friday one expected the whole town to join the procession for the dead Christ.
My Catholic upbringing was strengthened further by 10 years of schooling at Ateneo de Manila, a Jesuit school. Not only did the liberal brand of Catholicism the American Jesuits espoused resonate with me, I also came to appreciate the genuine concern the Jesuits I met showed for me.
The Jesuits built up virtues that my parents had started to instill in their children: a Christian commitment to truth, justice, and duty (that my Dad showed in pointing out the misdeeds of government officials), a passion for excellence (that Dad not only spoke about but also demonstrated in the manner he handled the jobs he accepted), and a concern for the less fortunate (that my Mom showed in helping relatives even poorer than we, indigent acquaintances who needed medical assistance, maids who were treated like family).
I WAS NOW on the lookout for an activist group that was radical but mindful of Christian principles. I examined the position papers, platforms, and manifestos of various activist groups and was quickly dissatisfied with the statements of those who called themselves Social Democrats or SocDems. To me, their formulations sounded imprecise, showed a poor knowledge of Philippine history and a lack of awareness of international politics. Their platform appeared to be the work of an elite few who did not touch base with the populace. I looked elsewhere for answers.
A couple of students from my discussion group in school joined the Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataang Pilipino (MPKP) or Free Union of Filipino Youth, an affiliate of Jesus Lava’s Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas that led the Communist Hukbalahap guerrillas of the 1940s and 1950s. In the rallies that started at the Welcome Rotunda in Quezon City, I remember seeing workers and farmers, rather than students, gathering under MPKP banners near Blumentritt Street. What caught my eye, and that of most people watching on the sidelines, were the more numerous streamers following the red banners of Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK). These groups called themselves National Democrats or NatDems and were believed to be red-infiltrated. They stood out because of their numbers, their radical slogans, and their eagerness to confront the riot police.
KM and SDK branches appeared soon enough in Ateneo’s college and high school, but they were student organizations and I felt awkward about getting involved with them. I tried getting involved with NatDems at my level from outside Ateneo, but my encounters were disconcerting.
Before it dissolved, MAGAT organized a meeting in the one restaurant that then fronted Ateneo, to help teachers from St. Theresa’s College, a Catholic girls’ school, who were being fired. Some UP NatDems led by a young UP teacher asked to be allowed to attend the meeting as observers. By using aggressive language, these radicals managed to take over the meeting. The instructor even delivered a rousing speech to agitate everyone. Without looking closely into the teachers’ individual cases, the NatDems convinced them to start picketing the next day. The picketing fizzled out in a couple of days, but their firebrand advisers had disappeared by then.
I also had a brief stint with a small NatDem group of scientists and researchers based in UP that called itself the Samahan ng mga Makabansang Siyentipiko (SMS) or Association of Patriotic Scientists. The group coalesced around Roger Posadas, the leading light of the UP Physics Department. Joining such a circle of activists with a science stamp to it seemed natural since I was doing mathematics. After joining a few of their study sessions, however, I dropped out. I was not able to relate to the unstructured meetings that wandered from commentaries on dialectical materialist principles to such practical matters as the preparation of a more powerful “pillbox” (homemade bomb) for the self-defense of fellow activists.
The National Democrats appeared fearsome to Catholic school students and teachers, yet they posed a great attraction. They were the radicals in the protest movement. The gospel they preached, namely, a national democratic revolution supported by people’s war and led by a new Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), presented a dilemma to people like me. So impressed were my parents with Americans and the American way of life that they named me after an American GI, a Texas oil millionaire who had become a close family friend during WWII. They had fond hopes that my siblings and I would someday find our way to the United States and pursue the American dream. How could I get involved with a movement that was communist-inspired? Stories I had read about communists in my younger days still horrified me, stories of Joseph Stalin’s bloody pogroms and purges and graphic references to communist persecution of Christians. How could I get involved with a movement with a godless ideology that ate Christians for breakfast?
AS THE MONTHS PASSED and the national crisis deepened, it appeared increasingly urgent for an activist like myself to be part of a political organization with a winning strategy. I needed a push, and a priest provided it: Fr. Edicio de la Torre, SVD. His following was growing among priests, nuns, and seminarians because of his lucid essays and lectures about politics from a Catholic viewpoint. I could relate to his arguments. His revelatory essay, “Christians in the National Democratic Revolution,” provided reassurance that radical involvement was justified, as liberation theology argued, in order to bring about God’s kingdom on earth.
I read him and wanted to hear him speak. I made it a point to attend when he came to give a talk at Ateneo. The audience in the main biology lecture room was abuzz with anticipation. When Father Ed began, his words about Christian involvement in the struggle were a refreshing breeze. He showed that deeply felt anger against injustice and compassion for the oppressed was rooted in the Catholic faith. But what sticks most in my mind was how he challenged the audience, made up mainly of the middle class and petit bourgeois. One cannot be sure, he said, that people like you will remain faithful to the cause of radical change, much less provide resolute leadership in the struggle. The middle class was marked by two failings: “mahina ang tuhod at malabo ang isip (weak in the knees and confused in thinking).”
He promptly dismissed fears of the communists. The time to join the struggle for national liberation was now, he said, to muster more forces and enrich the variety of the united front. The NatDem program was a political program to get control of government. As a Christian, one could accept it without becoming a communist. Would a red regime later turn against and oppress the Church? One had to postpone such worries; being part of the struggle would provide some insurance against being attacked as a reactionary force, though one always needed to be vigilant about one’s faith.
What about the use of violence and the talk of people’s war? It took time for me to realize that this was no big deal. The issue was often raised in a classroom, coffee shop, or beerhouse, but