Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo
revolutionary courage).” The central character painted on the canvas was a Filipino Thor, a muscular worker striking forward with a hammer, sending a collection of dubious characters in coat, tie, and top hat and in barong tagalog scrambling back in fear.
I missed attending a major rally with 3KP because I had elected not to be absent from my classes that day. It was the one MDP organized for Caloocan City, the exit from Manila to the northern provinces. The demonstrators were to assemble at the usual places in Manila, march through Rizal Avenue and mass at the Balintawak Monument (a landmark dedicated to the 1896 revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio and his men at the Caloocan Rotunda). The march started in downtown Manila but never quite reached the Bonifacio Monument. At the Caloocan boundary, it was brutally attacked by goons and thugs said to have been hired from the extensive squatter colonies of the city by Mayor Macario Asistio, a staunch ally of Marcos. A newspaper photograph of that time shows a fearsome mob armed with pipes, 2-by-2s, knives, and even sickles, blocking a street. The marchers had to disperse after being rushed by such armed groups. I heard about the bloody aftermath of the rally from 3KP member Sonny Hizon, who used his Ford Escort to carry wounded demonstrators to nearby hospitals.
The one occasion when 3KP members were able to give direct support to workers was when we joined striking workers picketing at the Atlas factory in Novaliches, an industrial zone on the outskirts of Manila. When I got to the large vacant lot in front of the factory, a group of about 30—some workers and 3KP activists—had gathered near the entrance. The person chosen to express our support for the strike, an ex-seminarian named Rey, was delivering his speech. Suddenly, a jeepload of policemen arrived. They closed up in a rough line to within a dozen meters and stood there menacingly as Rey was getting to the high point of his speech. He had his fist raised and was shouting, “At ano kung harapin nila tayo ng karahasan? (And what if they confront us with violence?)” He was referring vaguely to the state, not to this group of policemen specifically. Everyone waited nervously for his answer to his own question, seeing that the policemen were within hearing distance. The tension was palpable. He continued weakly, “Eh di kausapin natin sila. (Oh then we reason out with them.)” That was the end of his speech and the small crowd quietly dispersed, we 3KP members slinking away with all the dignity we could muster. When we had put some distance between ourselves and the policemen, we broke out in laughter, slapping Rey on the back and teasing him about his tough words.
The leadership of 3KP felt that sooner or later we would have to do organizing work among the masses. This required that we first learn how to analyze the situation in a community. We had to practice conducting what was called by activists a “social investigation” or “SI.” The term used was derived from Mao’s essay, “On Social Investigation,” the principal guide of NatDem activists on the analysis of the differing social classes. A team of activists would survey a community, determine the social classes present there, and detail the dynamics between these classes. The team would then have basic data on who may be sympathetic to, and who may oppose, revolutionary change.
We set out to do our first SI near a Philippine Army camp in Bicutan, a town south of Manila. Yes, we knew the exercise would also give our members a chance to “integrate” or express solidarity with the poor in the area. But beyond that, we felt we had taken a significant step in the journey to the countryside and people’s war.
None of us had any experience in this kind of activity. In preparation, we had studied Mao’s article and obtained copies of some guidelines from another NatDem organization. I approached the project with some hesitance. Going out to talk to the residents of an urban poor community was novel and strange to a petty bourgeois intellectual like myself. Moreover, I was a shy person and doing SI meant I would be going out of my way to talk to strangers, in Tagalog, that I, an Ilonggo, was ill at ease with. But my comrades and I threw ourselves into the spirit of the exercise and quickly became absorbed in the details of the operation.
The area was government land so everyone who lived there was technically a squatter. We divided up the area into sections, assigned a pair of activists to each section, and fanned out. This way, we were able to interview almost all the residents of the area.
It was not easy figuring out who was who among the settlers. Who was oppressor and who was oppressed? Practically all of those we interviewed seemed to be oppressed. They all had the same problem, namely, keeping their heads above water economically. Later, back at the headquarters, we argued about who was a worker, a member of the petty bourgeoisie, a capitalist, a member of the lumpen proletariat (society’s undesirables), etc. Our preconceived notions of who was an ally or who was an enemy of radical change were often overturned by the results of the interviews. For example, we met soldiers who were employed by the state and therefore should have been defenders of it. But they too were oppressed, confiding to us their fear of being evicted from their homes at any time.
WORKING WITH PROTESTANTS took me to various places where few Catholics tread. We held a number of study sessions at the Hugh Wilson Ladies Hall on Lerma Street, a kind of YWCA center. There I discovered that several of our Protestant 3KP members were DeMolay members, that is, Junior Masons. Filipino Catholics have always been warned by church authorities against consorting with Masons. The Masonic Order grew out of the Knights Templar, which was regarded by the Catholic Church as a heretical organization. In Philippine history, many of the revolutionaries who were sworn enemies of the Spanish friars were Masons. It was no big deal for me, however. My paternal uncle Rizal was a ring-bearing Mason. Though our DeMolay members plotted nothing more sinister than how best to politicize other unconcerned DeMolay members, I thought it significant that Masons, at least junior members, were once again involved in revolutionary activity.
At Hugh Wilson Hall too was my first encounter with an alleged government spy. Elmer told us that word had been sent to 3KP that Fely, one of the women who came regularly to our study, was a government agent. The sources were even explicit about her credentials: she was a member of the military’s Women’s Auxiliary Corps or WAC, with the rank of sergeant. I remember feeling more than a bit nervous while I listened to Elmer. Once again, I was reminded that what we were doing was not simple parish work. We were doing what we could to topple a regime and the regime was fighting back. Now we were under surveillance. The situation took on the character of a movie plot when a member pointed out that Fely had a crush on our chairman. Years later, after martial law had been declared, I imagined running into Fely in full-dress uniform, but I never saw her or heard of her again.
MY BIRTH INTO ACTIVISM was followed by a more precious one: the birth of my only child, Leon. I took Bernie to the Family Clinic in Sampaloc in the early hours of June 15, 1971. Her labor was prolonged and a quick X-ray showed that the baby was in an unusual position—a case of face presentation, the doctor said. When our baby was finally delivered by Caesarean section, his face was red, almost purple, the features mashed and contorted from the long ordeal. I thought it looked weird.
Bernie and I viewed the baby again a little later. The swelling of his face had subsided; he looked so peaceful and cute. I was relieved to see that we had a fine-looking boy. His quick recovery from a long and difficult birth was a triumph and a good omen.
NOTES
1 Almost 40 years later, I learned that Pope John Paul II had formulated similar ideas as a young priest. In Catholic Social Ethics, an unpublished book from 1952-53, he wrote: “In a well-organized society, orientated to the common good, class conflicts are solved peacefully through reforms. But states that base their order on individualistic liberalism are not such societies. So when an exploited class fails to receive in a peaceful way the share of the common good to which it has a right, it has to follow a different path.” The path could be revolution: “Class struggle should gain strength in proportion to the resistance it faces from economically privileged classes. ... The Church should view the cause of revolution with an awareness of the ethical evil in factors of the economic and social regime, and in the political system, which generates the need for a radical reaction. It can be accepted that the majority of people who took part in revolutions—even bloody ones—were acting on the basis of internal convictions, and thus in accordance with conscience.” (Quotes are from Jonathan Luxmore, “Unpublished Text Sparks Controversy about John Paul II’s Views on Economics,” Third World Resurgence, 2007, Issue No. 200.)
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