(Excerpted from an unpublished book, "Spectrum of Life.")
Like the sunflower bud would bloom during the months of May and December in Baguio, the kids grew up to be bigger boys and bigger girls, then adolescents, then young adults and married grown-ups. This implied several passages from the innocence of the child to the trappings of the world of grown-ups. This implied re-living and actualizing childhood dreams in the so-called real world, starting with the domestic front.
Although, my brother and I were exposed to the same cultural patterns of mom and dad, the same neighborhood, the same school, the same mountains, and practically the same college environment, we had different coping mechanisms. We followed completely opposite life paths. My brother transformed to an outgoing, sociable person, but a slick operator, both in politics and economics. Kuya was attracted to signals that nurtured his “objectivism;” he was inclined towards changing the world to a socialist society. I transformed into an introspective, but conscientious person, drawn both to detailed work and eastern philosophy. I was attracted to signals that nurtured my subjectivity; I was focused on seeking the path within.
Our particular interaction had manifested in our later years in two opposing, yet complementary ways. While he was interactive, I was reflective. He would be at the forefront of events, while I would be behind the scene. I was secretly fascinated (and was envious) of kuya’s seeming ease in entering the crowd. He was humorous, the life of a party. I enjoyed being alone or in the company of one with whom I could interact one-on-one. Kuya basked in the limelight; I was content in the shadows, playing second fiddle, giving advice to the leader.
Age of Aquarius
My generation may be exemplified in the song “Aquarius” which described the dawning of a New Age, “a future world of peace, understanding, and love.” There was a breaking of old traditions together with advances in science. It was an age when satellites beamed the goings on around the world through the TV. In 1969, we watched (with our black and white TV set), the first step made by Neil Armstrong on the moon; “One small step of man, one giant step for mankind.” This overshadowed the globally beamed “Miss Universe Beauty Pageant,” when our very own Miss Gloria Diaz won the title.
The two major trends highlighting the culture of “freedom” found their way in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Baguio. They manifested in two major ways: the progressive orientation characterized by the slogan “workers of the world, unite,” and the peace culture of “make love, not war.”
For the progressives, teach-ins among schools about the state of the poverty situation in the country were conducted, along with public rallies and demonstrations, with the sickle and hammer emblazoned in red banners. The tunes included Bob Dylan’s “The Times That Are A-Changing” and the local version of the communist marching song, “Internationale.” The movie “The Deer Hunter,” was a poignant tale about an amputee-victim from the Vietnam War.
The “flower people” had their local versions of “Woodstock,” when pot or marijuana flowed among longhaired males (imagine Filipinos with afro hairs) and poncho-clad females, with banners and emblems of the peace sign. The popular tunes of the 1970s were the Beatles’ songs from the long-playing album, “Let It Be,” the ballads of Simon and Garfunkel (Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson and Scarborough Fair). The movies included “Strawberry Statement,” with the theme song “Give Peace a Change,” sung by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
My brother and I were caught in the trends. I suppose we were naturally drawn to the events around us as a reaction to our own back home situation. We were drawn initially to the school fraternity, which served as temporary repose, like a reprise of the paradise of our youth. We had brothers and sisters who shared our need for belongingness and acceptance. We shared the initiations, the pot sessions, the teach-ins, the parties and music. For me, it was a time for sharing profound and profane insights in living; it was living in “harmony” with peers.
Soon, however, the fraternity itself was divided into the progressives, the “flower people” and moderates, although the camaraderie among the members was held intact. (We still believed that “the frat’s greatest glory lies, not in its never-falling, but in its ever-rising whenever it falls.”) Kuya joined the Kabataang Makabayan (Nationalist Youth Movement), a front of the New People’s Army (NPA) and undertook organizing work among rural folks all over the place. I joined meditation groups and had a small circle of friends discussing existentialism and eastern philosophies. Mom and dad didn’t know what hit them. We were simply not the kids they thought we were.
Revolution and Reformation
When Martial Law was declared in September 11, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos clamp down on both the progressives and the hippies. Activists and militant groups were thrown behind bars. Long hairs and min-skirts were banned (I remembered that among the first overt acts of the military was to go around town cutting “long-haired freaks” and the under-fold of mini-skirts). The free flow of ideas was cut, with the state controlling the communication lines. A rigid military regimen was established under the guise of a “New Society.”
Kuya went underground and assisted in the organization of cadres, i.e., armed rebel groups. He disappeared for months. At times, he would sneak home just to pay a visit to mom and dad. We were still family and secretly, we were proud of him (we actually felt closer, because we knew he were fighting for a worthy cause; I was an errant boy, passing on small notes to his other comrades.). Then he was caught in 1974 in an encounter in Isabela province.
I went on with my studies. I was part of the scene, but more concerned with peaceful self-transformation. For a time, I was active in a spiritual group (in the same way the Beatles were hooked to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation). I even wanted to be a full-timer. Then, I got hooked into parenthood; I was going to have a baby and my own family at a young age of 18.
Mom and dad were devastated with what happened to both kuya and me. We had a funny anecdote about how frustrated dad was. While drunk, dad remarked in Pilipino: “I only have two sons: one wanted to replace the president of the country and the other wanted to go to heaven.” He concluded: “the first one, en-route for Malacañang (The White House) ended behind bars, and the other, not even half-way to the sky, fell back to the ground with a thud.”
Imagine the suffering and hardship that mom and dad had to go through. Dad had to go travel to Manila almost every month to follow-up the release of kuya, spending so much time and energy in the process. At one time, a fake army colonel even hoodwinked him to shell out money on the pretext that it was necessary for kuya’s release. Mom and dad also had to go through the burden of feeding not only me, but also my family, and extending help to kuya’s wife. (Before he was jailed, kuya was already married and it was during one of her wife’s visit to jail that she conceived. The child’s name was Paul Astru; “Astru” meant “armed struggle.”)
Lucky for kuya, he was released after four years, when Cardinal Sin, the Archbishop of Metro-Manila threatened to use the “pulpit” of the Catholic Church to force President Marcos to release the political prisoners. Lucky for me, my family became my source of inspiration; I finished my last two years with high grades and immediately landed with a good job.
Family Patterns
The world had since moved on. Most activists and pacifists had joined the institutions they rejected in earlier troubled times. This was true particularly after the 1986 peaceful February Revolution, which toppled the Marcos dictatorship. Kuya and I moved on with the rest of the world.
Sometime in 1980, when kuya and I traveled together for work in San Fernando, La Union, we reflected on our troubled years and what saved us. Kuya claimed that in jail, he withstood all physical tortures, but broke down with the psychological one: that he would not see his family again. He literally shivered at that thought. I was also saved from becoming further wayward because I had a family to attend to. I couldn’t imagine myself becoming a full-timer in a religious group, while my family had nothing to eat. In retrospect, what saved us was family.
Despite their own troubles between them, mom and dad had so much love and courage to sustain us, the prodigal sons. Despite their inadequacies (from our perspective), they nurtured us. Kuya and I realized that our respective families were also our greatest strength and weakness. We were also following the footsteps of our parents. Unconsciously, humans follow the patterns of their parents, in regards rearing of family. The human values of parents (not necessarily the cultural habits) are passed on until the next generation. This is evolution in progress, humanity in the process of becoming.
Apparently old habits never die, although the warmth remained. In 2004, when kuya visited from the US, we had a chance to recall the events of our childhood, which was very fine. However, during one of our visits to a friend of his in Manila, he absentmindedly asked me to pick up his baggage from the car and bring it in the house. I complied, not grudgingly as during our younger years, but with amusement. We were already in our fifties and I was still kuya’s errant boy. Nonetheless, all the time kuya was in Baguio and the Philippines, he paid the bills.
Like the sunflower bud would bloom during the months of May and December in Baguio, the kids grew up to be bigger boys and bigger girls, then adolescents, then young adults and married grown-ups. This implied several passages from the innocence of the child to the trappings of the world of grown-ups. This implied re-living and actualizing childhood dreams in the so-called real world, starting with the domestic front.
Although, my brother and I were exposed to the same cultural patterns of mom and dad, the same neighborhood, the same school, the same mountains, and practically the same college environment, we had different coping mechanisms. We followed completely opposite life paths. My brother transformed to an outgoing, sociable person, but a slick operator, both in politics and economics. Kuya was attracted to signals that nurtured his “objectivism;” he was inclined towards changing the world to a socialist society. I transformed into an introspective, but conscientious person, drawn both to detailed work and eastern philosophy. I was attracted to signals that nurtured my subjectivity; I was focused on seeking the path within.
Our particular interaction had manifested in our later years in two opposing, yet complementary ways. While he was interactive, I was reflective. He would be at the forefront of events, while I would be behind the scene. I was secretly fascinated (and was envious) of kuya’s seeming ease in entering the crowd. He was humorous, the life of a party. I enjoyed being alone or in the company of one with whom I could interact one-on-one. Kuya basked in the limelight; I was content in the shadows, playing second fiddle, giving advice to the leader.
Age of Aquarius
My generation may be exemplified in the song “Aquarius” which described the dawning of a New Age, “a future world of peace, understanding, and love.” There was a breaking of old traditions together with advances in science. It was an age when satellites beamed the goings on around the world through the TV. In 1969, we watched (with our black and white TV set), the first step made by Neil Armstrong on the moon; “One small step of man, one giant step for mankind.” This overshadowed the globally beamed “Miss Universe Beauty Pageant,” when our very own Miss Gloria Diaz won the title.
The two major trends highlighting the culture of “freedom” found their way in the late 1960s and early 1970s in Baguio. They manifested in two major ways: the progressive orientation characterized by the slogan “workers of the world, unite,” and the peace culture of “make love, not war.”
For the progressives, teach-ins among schools about the state of the poverty situation in the country were conducted, along with public rallies and demonstrations, with the sickle and hammer emblazoned in red banners. The tunes included Bob Dylan’s “The Times That Are A-Changing” and the local version of the communist marching song, “Internationale.” The movie “The Deer Hunter,” was a poignant tale about an amputee-victim from the Vietnam War.
The “flower people” had their local versions of “Woodstock,” when pot or marijuana flowed among longhaired males (imagine Filipinos with afro hairs) and poncho-clad females, with banners and emblems of the peace sign. The popular tunes of the 1970s were the Beatles’ songs from the long-playing album, “Let It Be,” the ballads of Simon and Garfunkel (Sound of Silence, Mrs. Robinson and Scarborough Fair). The movies included “Strawberry Statement,” with the theme song “Give Peace a Change,” sung by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
My brother and I were caught in the trends. I suppose we were naturally drawn to the events around us as a reaction to our own back home situation. We were drawn initially to the school fraternity, which served as temporary repose, like a reprise of the paradise of our youth. We had brothers and sisters who shared our need for belongingness and acceptance. We shared the initiations, the pot sessions, the teach-ins, the parties and music. For me, it was a time for sharing profound and profane insights in living; it was living in “harmony” with peers.
Soon, however, the fraternity itself was divided into the progressives, the “flower people” and moderates, although the camaraderie among the members was held intact. (We still believed that “the frat’s greatest glory lies, not in its never-falling, but in its ever-rising whenever it falls.”) Kuya joined the Kabataang Makabayan (Nationalist Youth Movement), a front of the New People’s Army (NPA) and undertook organizing work among rural folks all over the place. I joined meditation groups and had a small circle of friends discussing existentialism and eastern philosophies. Mom and dad didn’t know what hit them. We were simply not the kids they thought we were.
Revolution and Reformation
When Martial Law was declared in September 11, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos clamp down on both the progressives and the hippies. Activists and militant groups were thrown behind bars. Long hairs and min-skirts were banned (I remembered that among the first overt acts of the military was to go around town cutting “long-haired freaks” and the under-fold of mini-skirts). The free flow of ideas was cut, with the state controlling the communication lines. A rigid military regimen was established under the guise of a “New Society.”
Kuya went underground and assisted in the organization of cadres, i.e., armed rebel groups. He disappeared for months. At times, he would sneak home just to pay a visit to mom and dad. We were still family and secretly, we were proud of him (we actually felt closer, because we knew he were fighting for a worthy cause; I was an errant boy, passing on small notes to his other comrades.). Then he was caught in 1974 in an encounter in Isabela province.
I went on with my studies. I was part of the scene, but more concerned with peaceful self-transformation. For a time, I was active in a spiritual group (in the same way the Beatles were hooked to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi of Transcendental Meditation). I even wanted to be a full-timer. Then, I got hooked into parenthood; I was going to have a baby and my own family at a young age of 18.
Mom and dad were devastated with what happened to both kuya and me. We had a funny anecdote about how frustrated dad was. While drunk, dad remarked in Pilipino: “I only have two sons: one wanted to replace the president of the country and the other wanted to go to heaven.” He concluded: “the first one, en-route for Malacañang (The White House) ended behind bars, and the other, not even half-way to the sky, fell back to the ground with a thud.”
Imagine the suffering and hardship that mom and dad had to go through. Dad had to go travel to Manila almost every month to follow-up the release of kuya, spending so much time and energy in the process. At one time, a fake army colonel even hoodwinked him to shell out money on the pretext that it was necessary for kuya’s release. Mom and dad also had to go through the burden of feeding not only me, but also my family, and extending help to kuya’s wife. (Before he was jailed, kuya was already married and it was during one of her wife’s visit to jail that she conceived. The child’s name was Paul Astru; “Astru” meant “armed struggle.”)
Lucky for kuya, he was released after four years, when Cardinal Sin, the Archbishop of Metro-Manila threatened to use the “pulpit” of the Catholic Church to force President Marcos to release the political prisoners. Lucky for me, my family became my source of inspiration; I finished my last two years with high grades and immediately landed with a good job.
Family Patterns
The world had since moved on. Most activists and pacifists had joined the institutions they rejected in earlier troubled times. This was true particularly after the 1986 peaceful February Revolution, which toppled the Marcos dictatorship. Kuya and I moved on with the rest of the world.
Sometime in 1980, when kuya and I traveled together for work in San Fernando, La Union, we reflected on our troubled years and what saved us. Kuya claimed that in jail, he withstood all physical tortures, but broke down with the psychological one: that he would not see his family again. He literally shivered at that thought. I was also saved from becoming further wayward because I had a family to attend to. I couldn’t imagine myself becoming a full-timer in a religious group, while my family had nothing to eat. In retrospect, what saved us was family.
Despite their own troubles between them, mom and dad had so much love and courage to sustain us, the prodigal sons. Despite their inadequacies (from our perspective), they nurtured us. Kuya and I realized that our respective families were also our greatest strength and weakness. We were also following the footsteps of our parents. Unconsciously, humans follow the patterns of their parents, in regards rearing of family. The human values of parents (not necessarily the cultural habits) are passed on until the next generation. This is evolution in progress, humanity in the process of becoming.
Apparently old habits never die, although the warmth remained. In 2004, when kuya visited from the US, we had a chance to recall the events of our childhood, which was very fine. However, during one of our visits to a friend of his in Manila, he absentmindedly asked me to pick up his baggage from the car and bring it in the house. I complied, not grudgingly as during our younger years, but with amusement. We were already in our fifties and I was still kuya’s errant boy. Nonetheless, all the time kuya was in Baguio and the Philippines, he paid the bills.
Comments from a sis in the sorority, who called herself Sacramento Florist:
ReplyDeleteWow, how wonderful to learn that my family wasn't the only one that went through similar challenges. My sister and I were detained for a long time and saw how my mom suffered through our ordeal, travelling to see her two young children at least 3 times a month to make sure we were okay. Precy, my sister, went on to get her Phd here in the US and went back to serve Baguio; while I just run away.... trying to be a student of politics here in the US, and have become a conservative - a complete opposite of those bygone days.
(Edited conversation from a chat with Lou Pasetes, a brother in the Frat, known as “Big Mouth”):
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that you introduced me to pot after passing my initiation. AAh, those were the days. I first had it with you, then with the rest of the brods (that you named) in the succeeding days. To me that was an awakening, a new found freedom since I was brought up from a very very strict household… No, (it) did not mean any harm then, just goooood time, groooovy!!
You still have to learn about my own little struggle against the Marcos regime too. Did you know that during my days at UP Baguio, I was the only one among the students from Batac (Ilocos Norte, hometown of deposed president, Ferdinand Marcos) to demonstrate against its famous son which was the cause of my being branded as persona non grata that I did not go home for a long time.
I am proud to say that I belong to the generation of real activists. I even remember that time when the writ of habeas corpus was suspended and there was teach in at UP with Pepot (Ilagan) and Bembo Afable, we had to switch off all the lights and stay deathly quiet for about an hour because the goons came over.
“Bangon sa pagkakagupiling, bangon kauring alipin.” These are the words that are still resonating in my memory during our early activism years.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDelete(From Randy, a frat brother whose frat name is “Angel of the Morning”)
ReplyDeleteJan 22, 1971 about 8 PM...driving home from UP after the demonstrators were beaten up at Pines Hotel, 2 carloads of goons, some I recognized as Baguio City policemen overtook us in front of Baguio City High and boxed us in between 2 cars. They pulled me out of the car and someone made an attempt to pistol whip me. I raised my arm instinctively to block the blow, someone said "look he's fighting back." One of them pointed a carbine at me and as I lowered my arm, I was hit with the carbine butt. Barely conscious, I tried to crawl under the car to get away from the blows but they came at me hard and fast.
When I awoke, I could hear Clark trying to keep me from making noises. He had driven me (Clark and Sam were passengers in the car but they pretended to be unconscious after getting hit a couple of times and they never pulled them out of the car) back to UP. The goons had now gone inside the campus and there was a mad scramble for the students to try to get away. We spent some time in the campus before Clark got enough nerve to drive me to BGH.
The beatings of other students continued for another week before some senators started investigating what was going on. The senators sent a couple of Phil Constabulary men to guard us as the investigation went along. Some of the students were camping at our house for the PC protection. There was a lot of tension in our residence...I have brought on mouths to feed the threat of being attacked anytime...and all these with my Dad suffering a stroke some months earlier. I put the word out that I was not going to take any more crap. I was "packing" and I would have taken out anyone who tried to beat me again. The City Atty. sent word that if any of his guys got hurt, he would not only hurt me, he would also involve my family. Reminiscent of the Mafia Hollywood movies, we finally made peace at a meeting on the second floor of the Mido Cafe...just him and a bodyguard/ me and Bembo Afable.