Chapter 12 - Too Young To Die
It was a typical
summer morning in Iligan City, Philippines. The year was 1985. When I arrived
in the office, our secretary handed me a telegram. The message was brief but
crystal clear: “NOY, COME IMMEDIATELY, LOLOY KILLED.” It was from my younger
brother, Joey, who, together with his older brother Chito, was working as a
radio broadcaster in Davao City. “Noy” is a contraction of “Manoy” --- a title of
respect usually accorded to the eldest brother in the family. I am the eldest
in the family and all my eight siblings call me Manoy. “Loloy” was the pet name
of our youngest brother, Joseph. It took me some time before the whole message
sank in. My brother, gone. He did not die…he was killed.
While on our way
to Davao with my wife, I had the luxury of time to reminisce and to reflect on
the events in the past that led to the current situation. While I was growing
up and started to understand the harsh realities of life in the farm where we
were born and raised, I promised to myself to help my parents put my siblings
in school once I finished college. After my graduation in 1978, I was hired by
the university for a full-time teaching position and soon I was extending
financial help to my brothers, Chito and Joey, who were attending high school
in Cabadbaran City.
After my first year of teaching, Joseph
finished elementary---at the top of their class. I asked my parents to send
Joseph to stay with me in the university campus because I wanted him to study
at the best high school in the region---the University Science High School---
where the students are selected from among the top and the brightest. Admission
was competitive and tough but Joseph passed the admission test quite
easily.
Unfortunately,
Joseph was unhappy with his stint in the Science High School. In the middle of
that year, he approached me and told me that he wanted to go home. When I asked
“why?” He said he could not excel in the science high because all students are
smart and he was just an average student. “If I study in our hometown,” he
explained, “I will be the smartest guy in our class. I want to graduate as
valedictorian just like you.” “It sounds unconvincing to me,” I told him. “You
see, I prefer even if you’ll be the least among the brightest rather than the
smartest among the mediocre and the dull-witted.” But he was so steadfast in
his desire to go home so I informed my father about the decision and sent him
home to our farm in Bayugan.
That was the
last time that I saw Joseph alive. Assured that he was happy and safe in our
home, I did not even miss his departure. Life in the university is pretty
hectic with so many activities. In a couple of years, the university sent me on
a scholarship grant to pursue master’s degree at a university in Manila.
Communication
then was not as easy as now. No cellphone, no Internet or Facebook or Viber.
Communicating with my parents was through handwritten letters once or twice a
year. Telegram is reserved for emergency. I did not even know that Joseph
stopped schooling, joined my two brothers in Davao City and worked in a
charcoal factory.
While I was
studying in Manila, my colleagues in the university formed a computer
consulting company in Iligan City and upon my return, they invited me to join
them as a consultant, in addition to my teaching responsibilities in the
university. It was there in my consultancy office that I received that fateful
telegram that shook our family to the very core.
**********
As we entered
the city, (this was my first time to come to Davao), what first caught my
attention were the wide and spacious avenues and streets. Buildings were widely
separated and there were so much vacant spaces. Of course, what do you expect
on a city that has the biggest land area in the world!
But in the mid
80’s, Davao was a city in turmoil. The entire city became the battleground in a
typical urban guerrilla warfare that you see on TV in other parts of the world.
There was a semblance of normalcy during the day. By dusk, commercial establishments
were already closed. At night, under the cover of darkness, armed communist
forces roam the streets ready to eliminate any perceived enemies. The
government forces returned in kind. Dozens of killings perpetrated by both
sides happened during the night while some occurred even in broad daylight.
When we reached
the place where my brother’s wake was held, my parents and all my siblings were
already there waiting for us. I have not seen my family for a couple of years
since the time I left for Manila and it was a sort of a family reunion but what
a reunion that was. I went closer to the casket where Joseph was lain and I
almost could not recognize him anymore. He was just a scrawny boy when I last
saw him. The man in the casket, wearing a polo barong was already a full-grown
man. I hastily made some mental calculation, in a few days that month, he would
have celebrated his 20th birthday. I continued observing his physique. His
muscles both in the abs and the arms are discernible. His neck was strong but
it bore a wound so long it almost encircled the whole neck although it was
meticulously and neatly sutured by the funeral staff.
“That bayonet
wound,” Chito whispered to me, “almost decapitated him. He has more wounds in
his back and on the torso. It must be a long, agonizing death between early
Saturday evening up to early dawn of last Sunday.”
I did not learn
the whole story until late that evening when Chito had already the time to
share it with me. Both Chito and Joey worked as radio broadcasters of Station
DXMF otherwise known as Radyo Bombo. Joey was some kind of an anchorman and a
news commentator while Chito was in Radyo Patrol, a team of field reporters
roving around the city day in and day out reporting news on the spot as they
encounter them.
The entire team
was named Apollo Patrol with each radioman given a number. Chito was Apollo Uno
(Apollo One), the others followed in increasing order as Apollo Dos, Apollo
Tres, and so on. The busiest part of their patrol was on the early morning when
the happenings of the previous night got to be reported.
On the early morning of that fateful Sunday, Chito received a tip from a
funeral parlor directing him to go to a certain place where they heard
something happened the night before. When he reached the place, Chito’s world
crushed because he immediately recognized the first victim that he saw laying
lifeless on the cornfield. It was Joseph’s buddy---his co-worker. To make the
matter worse, Chito identified that the bloody fabric that was used to tie the
hands, was Joseph’s shirt.
That Saturday, I
attended church in Adams Center. After the religious service, a friend of mine
introduced me to a certain Atty. Zerna who was regularly attending church
there. Atty. Zerna was the chief of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)
office in Davao. Upon knowing that I am a brother of Chito and Joey, he shook my hand, and he started briefing me
on the status of their investigation. The main suspect was a Barangay Captain
(Village chief) with some of his henchmen who also worked as paramilitary. It
was a case of mistaken identity that our brother was a communist. It was a
clear case of extra-judicial killing--- a summary execution. We, Filipinos,
have a term for that---“liquidation.” My brother was liquidated on a mere
suspicion of being a communist.
Looking back, I
will never forget that bleak chapter of our family’s existence. Nineteen
eighty-five was the darkest year in the annals of Davao City’s history. April
14, 1985 was our family’s darkest day.
Epilogue
The following year, Lt. Col. Franco Calida, the feisty
head of the military’s Metropolitan District Command (Metrodiscom), with the
political backing of the newly designated Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte, organized
the Alsa Masa (literally, “People’s Uprising” against the communists). My
brothers Chito and Joey, together with Radiomen Jun Pala of DXOW and Leo Palo
of DXRA were very much involved in this undertaking from the time of its
inception.
While Calida was directing the military operations,
the four radiomen were the mouthpiece of incessant psychological propaganda on
the airwaves exposing the communists’ atrocities. Their involvement was not
without peril.
On 17 January 1987, a 4-man team Sparrow Unit, the
notorious hit squad of the communist New People’s Army barged into the
announcer’s booth of Radyo Bombo looking for Chito. But Chito was having a
break and it was Joey who was in there. They strafed the announcer’s booth with
bullets and lobbed a fragmentation grenade before leaving the place. The
grenade explosion was heard on the airwaves before the broadcast stopped. Joey
was badly wounded but survived the attack. That incident will be a subject of
another write-up.
Seven months later on August 27, the Sparrow Unit
struck again, this time simultaneously on both DXRA and DXRD stations which led
to the demise of Leo Palo and another radioman Al Hinoguin.
It was a time of living dangerously. But their
sacrifices bore fruit. Eventually, many people joined the Alsa Masa working as eyes and ears of the
military. It was Mao Zedong’s dictum that “The guerrilla must move amongst the
people as a fish swims in the sea.” But in Davao’s case, the sea dried up and
the communist “sardines” had to retreat to some hospitable places outside of
Davao.
My brother’s killing was included in the
news report by William Branigin to the Washington Post dated August 8, 1985
titled “Davao, Known As Philippines’ ‘Murder Capital’.”
Comments
Post a Comment