Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo

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СКАЧАТЬ Music Room of Malacañang, the presidential palace, my arms and legs propped up with crutches and braces. To highlight the plight of an estimated 1.6-million handicapped persons in the Philippines, the government was issuing commemorative postage stamps called “Easter Seals.” I was chosen to present the first “Easter Seals” to the First Lady, Leonila Garcia, the wife of President Carlos P. Garcia.

      One would think that the pain and hardship of multiple surgical operations, plus post-polio treatment, would have traumatized my childhood years. Surprisingly, it was not physical pain that affected me the most. Rather, it was the abnormal social life of a person with a marked disability that had a greater impact. When I was in the fifth grade, at age 11, I wrote a short speech for a conference of orthopedic specialists. I said:

      Last year, I had my fourth operation and my schooling had to be stopped. My doctor says that next year, I shall have my fifth operation. I am getting pretty tired of operations. They are painful and I always cry. . . . In school, I find it hard to go up and down the stairs. While my classmates have fun at games, I sit around and watch from my desk. How I wish I were like them. . . . When I walk, some people stop and stare. Unkind children tease and make fun of me. I don’t mind too much now. My parents love me and I am happy. I am thankful that I’m alive. But there is nothing like having two good legs.

      I was a boy with an inferiority complex, plagued with self-doubt. Will I get passing grades? Will I be truly accepted by my classmates? Will I ever date a girl?

      My parents sacrificed a lot for their children. In my case, Dad and Mom took on the heavy burden of ensuring that I got the needed therapy, surgery, and care. Besides attending to my medical and material needs, Mom did her best to care for my emotional needs. When she saw me with friends or classmates, she would maintain a comfortable distance, knowing that I was trying to assert a degree of independence. When it was time to abandon shorts for long pants, she sewed special trousers for me. The fashion then was tight-fitting, but because I wore metal leg braces attached to special shoes, I had great difficulty putting on and removing my pants. My mother’s solution was to sew hidden zippers on the insides of both side lengths of the pants. Those pants succeeded in hiding my braces and gave me a semblance of being just like the other boys. However, there would always be one or two kids who discovered my secret and tortured me with their teasing. It was a relief when the fashion changed to bell-bottom pants.

      I tried to overcome my feelings of inferiority by doing well in extracurricular activities and veering toward a barkada or peer group. I was not inspired by San Beda’s Catholic mission, and I did poorly in academics. However, San Beda’s extracurricular program offered what I considered the best practical education. I learned journalism through the student publications. And I learned organization and leadership by joining the Sodality, and later the Student Council. At age 12, I was single-handedly producing the newsletter for the Sodality and organizing religious retreats (which were actually “fun” nights) for kids younger than I. In grade seven, I was doing editorial and layout work on the Little Bedan, the official student publication. I also started organizing parties for my class.

      When I was 12, a close family friend started to “borrow” me as company for their only son. Emiliana Jalbuena, whom we affectionately called Tita (Aunt) Emy, and her husband, Alberto, had four children. The first three were girls. The youngest, and their favorite, was a boy my age named Joma. Dr. Alberto Jalbuena, an ophthalmologist, had earned a fortune pioneering the use of contact lenses in the Philippines. His success and the inherited landholdings of his wife afforded the family the life of millionaires. They had a large, beautiful house in Urdaneta Village, an exclusive gated community in Makati. The family had a swimming pool, four cars, and uniformed servants and chauffeurs attending to their needs. At first, Mom was reluctant to allow me to spend much time at the Jalbuenas’. But seeing that Tita Emy treated me like a son, Mom accepted it as a temporary arrangement.

      It was a dramatically different and pampered life for me at the Jalbuena residence. Waking up in the morning, I would slide open the glass doors of the air conditioned room and jump into the swimming pool. (I wore goggles that covered my nose and relied on my arms to carry my weight.) After a hot shower, I would find my school clothes neatly pressed and prepared on my bed. I would then eat a continental breakfast before the chauffeur drove Joma and me to school in a Mercedes Benz. I became seduced by the life of luxury, and my extended weekend stays at the Jalbuena residence became alternate week stays. Then they stretched to include summer and Christmas vacations. Ricky Yatco, Joma’s first cousin, joined us at the Jalbuena residence. Eventually, we formed a close-knit peer group. Later, my brother Jun, who was a year and a half younger than I, would join the barkada intermittently.

      Ryan was eight and Jun was six in this picture (1962). Entering their teens, they were still close enough to be part of the same barkada.

      Living with the rich sometimes gave me the feeling of being rich myself. Most of the time, however, it only underscored the real situation of my family. I felt this not only at the Jalbuena residence, but in school as well. When I was at Concepcion Aguila with my family, my allowance was 50 to 75 centavos a day. In school, some of my classmates had daily allowances of five to 10 pesos, and for a select few, it was double or triple that amount. At the Jalbuena home, Tita Emy gave me an allowance of 50 pesos¹ a day.

      I had just turned 14 when the barkada participated as poll watchers in the 1969 presidential elections where President Marcos was running for a second term. We were interested in meeting girls, and one of Ricky’s friends recruited us as poll watchers. So there we were at the poll precincts of the very rich in Forbes Park and Urdaneta Village, both in Makati, our attention riveted more to girls rather than to the ballot boxes. We enjoyed meeting girls, and while our participation in poll watching was totally insignificant, the exercise made me inquisitive about elections and the issues of the day.

      EVEN BEFORE THE First Quarter Storm of 1970, my elder brother Jan was already into activism. A year older than I, he usually shared his experiences whenever we saw each other. He told me about the protest movement in his school and introduced me, through his stories, to Kabataang Makabayan. Although he didn’t elaborate on KM’s program, he impressed on me that the crisis in the Philippines called for radicalism, a revolution with ideals similar to the Katipunan of 1896. He was very serious, determined, and fearless when he spoke of his beliefs.

      While Jan took on the serious path of revolution, my sisters Caren and Lillian were on the side of the “moderates.” They were in a group called SUCCOR which advocated reforms through a “nonpartisan Constitutional Convention.” The group was part of a movement led by the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) which placed its hopes on a new constitution that would avoid revolution and bloodshed as a path for change.

      Reform or revolution? The question was answered for me by the First Quarter Storm. Most of my older siblings were in the January 26 demonstration. I was not. But hearing the blow-by-blow account on the radio, I could only empathize with the student protesters. A picture published in the newspapers reporting on the January 26 demonstration showed a dozen students trying to find refuge inside a jeepney. They were surrounded by riot police who were swinging their truncheons despite the obvious fact that the students were unarmed, helpless, and terrified. Young as I was, I came to understand the words fascism and state violence. I concluded that such brutes understood only the language of bullets.

      Weeks later, as I left school to go home, I heard pillbox bombs exploding on Legarda Street behind San Beda College. It was another demonstration that was degenerating into a street battle. The smell of gunpowder was in the air. Something told me that the revolution was no longer a question of possibility, or whether or not it could be avoided. The pages of history were turning fast.

      My feelings then solidified into a coherent cause as I read nationalist articles and books that mushroomed СКАЧАТЬ