Martyrs and Mothers in Mindoro

During our Journey With Heroes remembrance last Saturday, some Mindoro connections brought back memories from the early years of repression and resistance.

I was born and grew up in Naujan, Oriental Mindoro. But I left my hometown to enter Christ the King Mission Seminary as a second year high school student. Since then, I lived in Metro Manila, except for brief summer vacation visits to Naujan. In fact, as FFF and Khi Rho national chaplain, I spent more days in other towns and provinces than in Naujan.

When martial law was declared, I evaded the arresting unit that came for me at the seminary. After joining the fledgling underground network in Metro Manila, I thought of going back to Mindoro. After all, according to the national democratic strategy, we should build the bases of armed revolution in the countryside. But I was contacted by some senior officials of the movement and told to stay put in Metro Manila: “You can better serve as part of the Preparatory Committee (Prepcom) of the National Democratic Front.”

First martyrs: Unang Alay

It was another group of young Christian activists that went to Mindoro to do what I was thinking of doing. Like myself, they were radicalized from their initial “reformist” involvement. Led by Rey Andal (who is from Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro), they started “guerilla zone preparations” doing the work of what would later be called SYP or  “sandatahang yunit pampropaganda.”

Being newly radicalized Christian activists, they had no specific training in guerilla zone preparation or clandestine organizing. All they could rely on were their previous skills in community organizing and education. Above all, they relied on their commitment to “serve the people,” and their ability to learn from actual field experience.

On November 3, 1972,  less than two months after the declaration of martial law, Rey Andal was killed by Scout Rangers. He was 21 years old. Official reports claimed that he was killed in an armed encounter.

Carlos Tayag, wrote a requiem poem for them, with what I think is his best poetic line: “Your deaths weigh heavy on us, like a mountain.” The image and feelings are a fusion of the Pinoy expression “mabigat sa loob” with Mao’s metaphor describing a life and death in the service of the people as “heavy like a mountain.”

As we talked about Rey Andal and his companions, I reflected aloud about what might have been: “If I had gone to Mindoro in 1972, I would have been with him.”  Then I would probably be also with him on the list of martyrs on the Wall of Remembrance.

Rey Andal and one of his companions, Dante Perez, are honored as martyrs on the Wall of Remembrance.

Here are excerpts from the Bantayog stories about their death. “Dante’s group was inside a hut, having just finished their supper and resting after a hard day’s work at a nearby farm. Suddenly they heard a call from outside asking them to surrender. Rey Andal thought it was a joke and shouted back to stop fooling. Gunshots followed…Killed instantly were Antonio Pastorfide and Rene Julao, both Pinamalayan residents…Rey was hit on the left leg and Dante on the stomach. A student from Manila’s Maryknoll College and Dante’s wife, Teresita “Tessie” Lioanag, rushed outside and told the troops to stop firing. The soldiers came in but pumped more bullets into the wounded Dante. Later the National Bureau of Investigation would find Dante negative for powder burns and his body riddled with 32 gunshot wounds.”

Mothers’ love is forever

The story doesn’t end with Rey Andal’s death. Again from Bantayog: “Later a carbine rifle was found in the Andal residence. Rey’s mother Patria was arrested, tried and convicted for illegal possession of firearms. She served 13 years, released only in 1986 after the martial law government fell. She died in 1997 after a long bout with disease.”

As we talked abut Nanay Andal, I thought of my own mother. When martial law was declared, Inay left her job at the kitchen of Christ the King Seminary, and returned to Naujan. She started her own piggery to support herself. But when I was arrested in December 1974, she had to leave Naujan and her pigs to visit me regularly in the various prisons I was in, for more than 5 years.

During Inay’s infrequent visits to Naujan, she would be visited by another young radicalized Christian, Rey Robles, whose name is also on the Wall of Remembrance.

Here is part of Rey’s story from Bantayog: “In 1975, he left Manila upon invitation of friends in the underground operating in Mindoro. He found a job as an analyst in the Mindoro provincial government but left it after a few months. He scraped some money to buy a farm. The idea grew on him that he could be a farmer and a political organizer at the same time. Although a stranger to Mindoro, Rey’s warm-heartedness and natural sympathy soon won the hearts of his community.

Rey was killed in 1977, when in a raid of his community, soldiers, asking no questions, fired at Rey. He was killed instantly. He was 30 years old.”

Throughout the martial law years, the family of Rey Robles could not travel to Mindoro to retrieve his body and give him a decent burial. They had to wait till EDSA 1986. When they were finally able to travel to Mindoro, Inay joined them to exhume Rey’s body from a common grave.

 

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