A Filipina Paralympic legend | The Inbox - Yahoo! News Philippines

A Filipina Paralympic legend | The Inbox - Yahoo! News Philippines

http://news.pecojon.ph/?p=1724

Muffled screams of demons past

IT WAS JUST AT THE STROKE OF MIDNIGHT when the demons, again, began to creep. Roman[i] lay rigid in his bed, his hands clenched into a fist. Sweat slid ominously from his temples down his nape. He tried moving his toes—just as what his therapist had taught him, a couple of sessions ago—whenever the nightmares gripped him into a virtual atrophy.

 

Failing, he tried to will his mind to force his neck muscles to bobble his head from side to side. As Roman did this, each shift wrought intermittent flashes in his mind, which consisted of four-second scenes of his ordeal a couple of years past.

 

Although they were just as fast as a blink of an eye, the scenes were dreadfully vivid.

 

Roman could almost smell the stench of urine in one of the flashing scenes, putrid human waste in another. He seemed to sense an electric rod grazing dangerously near his penis in yet one of the scenes.

 

Then the ultimate squall of sensation came. Gradually, Roman was gasping for air—it was as if a plastic bag was shrouded tightly over his head. At first, he felt ridiculous. “This could not be possibly happening to me for real,” his mind sarcastically thought. However, as seconds seemed to tick agonizingly slower than usual, Roman found himself in the threshold of asphyxiation. The silliness he felt microseconds ago turned to panic, as his body started to shudder.

 

“PATYA NA LANG KOOO!”

 

His conscious and unconscious mind screamed. Roman awoke his throat parched and sat up with what strength left in him.

 

With clammy fingers—jittering—he groped for a glass of water at the table just abutting his bed. This recurring nightmare, Roman observed, always visited him mid-August. He was trembling, swarthy with the sweat pouring.

 

Promising start

 

Sweat graciously streaming down his lithe body, Roman shifted his jog into a mid-dash to finish his lap for the morning. It was June of 1972. Fresh out of high school, he was looking forward to a great chapter in his life—his mom said so.

 

Aside from the clear blue cloudless sky, the day showed promise especially since it was Roman’s first day at the university—anxious to discover independence but frightened with thought that he was miles away from his cocooned rural life at the same time.

 

He had enrolled earlier than most so he could bide his time choosing a good boarding house nearest the University of Mindanao (UM), in downtown Davao City.

 

Aiming to tread his father’s—a Filipino US Navy ensign—footsteps, he took up Bachelor of Science in Criminology. Yes, Roman admits, studying to be a law enforcer is very different from the distinguished naval career his dad had. Nevertheless, since he flunked the height requirement in the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), Roman decided striving to be a police officer would be the second-best choice. Ever since Roman was ten, upholding law and order in the service of the republic had a special appeal to him. The mere thought of it gave him goose bumps.

 

He breezed through the first four semesters of his course’s minor subjects at UM with relative ease. He found his professors interesting and his shapely classmates even more interesting.

 

Roman, in his spare time in between subjects, would sketch and in no time discovered, he had the knack for it. Soon he was sketching his female classmates who would gamely pose for him. He was fast becoming famous in the campus for his doodles. His awkward hard-pressed strokes slowly flourished into graceful yet definite strokes. He tried even harder when one of his professors told him his talent would be a defining edge if he seriously considered a career in law enforcement.

 

During semestral breaks, would go home to his hometown in Mako, Davao. There he would regale his manongs, manangs with stories of his life at the university, from the girl he nearly courted but got busted trying to amusing anecdotes of his favorite absent-minded professor in Spanish class.

 

By mid-July, events unfolding in the nation’s capital turned from bad to worse. Roman watched intently on their boarding house’s wood-encased Radiowealth television as monochromatic images of students protested in the streets. At 14 years old, he could not understand what the students were so mad about.

 

Then he heard news that Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile’s Benz limousine was allegedly ambushed by the NPA (New People’s Army). On September 23 that year, Roman heard on the radio—amidst statics and halting voice—President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus then later declared Martial Law.

 

Roman liked how the president of the Bagong Lipunan (new society) took the mounting civil unrest under firm control with one decisive move. What stroke of genius, he mused in admiration.

 

He liked that everybody was particularly disciplined after the declaration. Even the mundane activities of the people improved. People fell in line properly; no drunken sots strolled around rustic neighborhoods or even in the bustling cities. In the news, Roman learned that the country was slowly emerging as the newest republic in Southeast Asia to contend with—the dailies and televisions said so.

 

Rude awakening

 

Roman was reviewing for an exam at night when his roommate—Carlo—told him they had forgotten to buy a coil of mosquito killer early in the afternoon. Not wanting to be disturbed, Roman hissed at Carlo to go out and buy it himself. It was 10:00 pm.

 

Engrossed with his notes, Roman lost track of the time. But when his bedside clock chimed twelve times, he suddenly realized Carlo had still not turned in—looking at the empty bunk bed below him.

 

“Maybe he’s in the living room downstairs talking to some of our board mates,” he thought.

 

Roman soon dozed off—Jose Rizal was cavorting with a redhead in a dark alley of Marseilles. Suddenly, Rizal was in a hut by the beach conducting a Mauriceau-Smellie—Veit maneuver to a frightened Caucasian brunette, who later delivered a stillborn baby. There was so much blood that his hand instinctively covered his mouth while in deep slumber.

 

Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding.

 

After wiping the sleep off his eyes, Roman looked down—with full intent—to give Carlo a good talking to. But, alas, the bed was empty. The pillows and blanket were tucked in the way it was when he turned in.

 

“Maybe Carlo woke up earlier than me. It’s about time he wakes up without me yelling at him to be up and about,” Roman muttered.

 

He ate a hearty breakfast and after a quick shower went to take the exam, he had prepared the night before. Morning turned to noon then noon to dusk, but Roman did not see Carlo in the halls, he even missed a lecture on basic surveillance in their evening class where they were classmates.

 

Roman dined alone in their room that evening, too upset to join the other board mates who did not seemed to care that Carlo had been eerily missing for almost 24 hours. It is as if Carlo—after going out to buy katol—just poofed into thin air.

 

The next morning when Carlo still failed to return, Roman decided to go to the university’s prefect of discipline who was also the dean of student affairs.

 

He recounted to the prefect the instances before Carlo had been missing. The prefect accompanied Roman to the nearest PC-INP (Philippine Constabulary-Integrated National Police) headquarters. There, they narrated the mysterious disappearance of Carlo. After hearing their story, the station sergeant—in between yawns and scratching of his belly—assured them they would look into it.

 

It was the last they heard from the obese sergeant.

 

Weeks past when Roman received news of a decomposing body—badly mutilated—was found in a dumpster under Bankerohan Bridge. With his heartbeat racing at what seemed like 120 mile per hour, he went.

 

As city coroners carried the bloodied body off the dumpster and into their vehicle, an arm fell by the side of the gurney exposing a too familiar bracelet made of grinded coconut shell fashioned into small beads.

 

Roman knew he had found Carlo.

 

Carlo’s gruesome and senseless end left Roman with a nagging question. Why was an innocent student brutally murdered when there was a martial rule in effect to protect the people from hoodlums and murderers? How could the invincible PC-INP let this happen?

 

Higher learning

 

After Carlo’s murder, the entire UM campus was abuzz with speculations. Roman overheard some junior students in hallways that Carlo was a member of some sort of secret club, others still hushed about a chapter of Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth) being clandestinely organized in the campus and that Carlo was supposedly a new recruit.

 

One day he found a note in between the pages in one of his textbooks.

 

“If you want to make sense out of the brutal killing of Carlo, join us at the university gym, under the bleachers this afternoon at three. Come alone.”

 

It took Roman at least a full minute for the message to sink in. “Perhaps this is the secret organization Carlo was into. Then again, maybe this is some kind of a sick asinine joke. But what if this is an attempt of Carlos’ killers to lure me in and then do me like they did Carlo?” The last thought angered Roman.

 

Not taking any chances, he concealed a dagger under his trousers before going to the gym that afternoon.

 

He found five students his age—two girls and three boys—huddled under the gym’s rafters. They were a serious looking bunch and right beside one of them was what appeared to be a black taffeta, one by two meter in size, tied firmly to the underside of the bleachers—like a makeshift blackboard.

 

After a momentary silence, they introduced themselves one after another—name (surnames were never said), course major and age—in that particular order.

 

Louie, a junior taking up draftsmanship, was a lanky boy towering at 6’1”; he was visibly annoyed with the low-ceilinged venue. From where Roman was standing, he could not help himself but stare at Louie’s immense hands.

 

A third-year political science major, Jim sporting a shoulder-length hair, was wearing round spectacles much like John Lennon’s—Roman could almost instantaneously feel that Jim did not like cheap exchanges of what their group would categorized as “just chewing the fat.”

 

Bobby—a second year student of civil engineering—was ironically into sports as Roman saw in Bobby’s well-toned physique. “He probably can pump 150 bench presses every morning, easy,” Roman muttered to himself.

 

Lorna was an affable 200-pound senior taking up western literature. Judging from Lorna’s near-immaculately fair complexion—what boys Roman’s age naughtily referred to as “mala-porselanang pamanit”—he could safely assume that Lorna came from a relatively affluent family.

 

As if out of nowhere, Roman shed all his paranoia and suddenly felt stupid remembering the three-inch dagger he had strapped to his ankles when he saw Tessa—“What was I thinking bringing a bladed weapon here.”

 

His heart pulsed a tad quicker than usual. Like in the movies where the lens abruptly focused—while the background blurred into a swirl of hues of blues and greens—on Tessa, Roman could not help but stare, although he was taught it was rude, mouth agape.

 

Tessa was a junior taking up commerce and majored in accounting. Like Roman, she was the youngest in her brood. As Roman stared on, her cheeks blushed to a crimson glow while her eyes seemed to speak a myriad of thoughts at what seemed like a notion per millisecond. She was bright and sprightly—Roman never knew such woman existed.

 

“Naunsa ka?”—Tessa self-consciously rebuked Roman.

 

Roman apologized for his uncouth behavior trying to shake off the trance-like state he was in—seeing such a beauty he never expected from this clandestine meeting.

 

“May’ng hapon mga kas. Before we start our monthly pagtasa, let’s welcome Roman to the group. Roman is the roommate of Kas Rodil (Carlo’s nom de guerre). He is a junior, taking up BS Criminology. And from Rodil’s last SI, Roman is into visual arts, has been relatively apolitical and aside from his father—who has long retired from active military service—no other member of his family has any connection or worked in the reactionary government,” Jim told the group, to the chagrin of Roman who thought that he was “invisible” in the campus.

 

What took place; Roman later learned, was the “talakayang buhay”, or put simply an in-depth biography and that this was needed prior to being recruited to ensure the groups safety—he knew the importance of security grimly with the death of Carlo.

 

The group was to be the first “collective” Roman would join. It was not particularly the KM but it was not an open club either. After the “introductions,” soon Roman was attending “education sessions” and “social integrations.”

 

He learned a lot from these encounters. He learned that what he thought was a brilliant law to discipline the country’s dissent was in reality stifling his very existence as a person.

 

He started reading Frederick Engel’s Origin of State, Family and Private Property, The Guild; Karl Marx’s Das Kapital, Theory of Revolution and Wage, Profit and Product; Vladimir Illych’s State and Revolution, Imperialism as well as Mao Zedong’s “Red Book.”

 

Roman did not stop there—with a new found fervor—he organized impoverished communities near the campus. “Serve the people,” was his new found declaration.

 

Slowly but surely, Roman started to form—for him—a novel view of the world, people and institutions.

 

Roman had been reborn, reborn with an aggressive dissident wit.

 

Objective practice

 

His first “deployment” was in the rolling dales and dimly-lit rainforests of Afga—Southeastern tip of Agusan del Norte. Roman was tasked to guide the political consciousness of combatants of the New People's Army's--armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines--Cesar Cayon Command—a generic company of Guerilla Front 4A.

 

Twice every month, he would discuss the fine points and importance of the “people’s protracted war,” and the correctness of the strategy of “surrounding the cities in the countryside.” Roman had proven to his comrades his apt diligence in practicing the revolution’s 3-8-7 iron discipline and his stern yet passionate rapport with his comrades.

 

In the boondocks, Roman developed a new skill. He found that he also had the knack for pistols. He drew fast and shoot straight. And because of his athletic body, was agile enough to execute rolls and summersaults.

 

Soon enough, he was not only tasked to be the company’s “political officer,” Roman was given “special missions.” Whenever the people in the community complained about an abusive Cafgu—Roman was sent to deliver the people’s justice.

 

Roman had—in three years time—become a member of NPA’s elite partisan unit, the “Sparrow” unit. They were the masses’ justice enforcement unit.

 

Just like in Tagalog B-movies, Roman said, they would engage “corrupt” policemen in a shootout even in the middle of busy junction of the city.

 

With Marcos’ martial law still in effect, human rights were violated with impunity. Militant sectoral leaders were disappearing—desaparecidos—while union leaders were almost regularly found lifeless in dumpsters or riverbeds throughout the country.

 

Roman, now a battle-tested ideologue, was deployed in a relatively “liberated” Agdao district of Davao City—infamously known then as “Nicaragdao”—a take on the equally embattled South American nation, Nicaragua.

 

There, he teamed up with long time comrade—Jim. Together with three other party cadres, they administrated “organizations of political power”—can be roughly likened to the country’s local government units (LGUs).

 

By then, kotong cops and local trapos have learned to dread Roman. A mere visit from him—even if only to exact “revolutionary taxes”—were visits not looked forward to.

 

One particularly humid afternoon of August 1986, Jim called for a meeting with the “kagawads” which included Roman.

 

Roman was at the other side of Agdao—there were no cell phones then, messages were sent by trusted “liaison” officers—when the memo came. He had just finished a “mission” that day and had forgotten his lunch. Roman decided to eat his midday repast before going to the meeting.

 

Taking his time, Roman ambled through eskinitas going to the designated venue of their meeting.

 

The venue was a hut strategically poised on a man-made hill. From the hut, one could see who was approaching.

 

When Roman took the last hairpin-turn to the venue, a ten-year-old kid rushed to him—with eyes wide pumped with adrenaline—hushed that earlier that noon a group of “government” looking men had raided the hut and taken Jim, with two others, in handcuffs.

 

“Naa pay nagpabilin tulo ka tawo nagpahipi dira sa kubo, noy,” the child whispered.

 

Years of training took over, Roman quickly deduced he could take the three armed men hiding by the side of the hut—he had encountered direr situations than this.

 

He cocked his 1911-Colt .45 then inched slowly towards the hut. As he was nearing the hut, he peeped through the hut’s stilts where he spied two silhouettes of men obviously with rifles.

 

But wait, Roman thought, the kid said there were three. But just as he was about to crawl away from the hut—“Click.”

 

Before Roman could react, he felt a sharp pang on his side—the man clad in camouflage had slammed the butt of this M16 on Roman’s ribs.

 

Splaaash!

 

Enemy of the state

 

Roman woke up tied to a wooden chair to a dark room with only a solitary bulb swaying ominously overhead—hanging by a thick wire—that made an annoying squeaking racket. He had been doused with a pail of water. His ribs were still stinging.

 

“Who is your leader, your party officer?” A grim baritone voice asked.

 

He tried to open his mouth to speak but before words could come out, suddenly from nowhere, a lead pipe hit him right smack his temple.

 

What appeared to him as a woman went near him and removed his pants and brief. She cupped Roman’s testicles while teasingly licked his earlobes. Despite the pain, Roman had an erection. A man emerged from behind the woman, with a red-hot tie-wire in hand shove it into Roman’s throbbing penis. Roman’s toes cringed at the burning sensation that seemed to radiate to his gut.

 

Not satisfied, the heavy-set man wiggled the tie-wire while still plunged into Roman’s urethra. At the same time, the woman kept on nibbling his ears kissing him down to his nape.

 

Roman passed out from the profusion of mixed sensations. Splash!

 

“Who is your recruiter?” The deep gravelly voice intoned again.

 

Somehow, Roman was now hanging upside down. A muted thud then he felt an excruciating pain on his pelvic; the strike hit tactically his kidney. Urine started to gush down to his mouth.

 

Another man, now slightly leaner than the other, swung a baseball bat to his armpit, sending exquisite sting to Roman’s solar plexus. Roman passed out again.

 

By now, Roman was already disoriented as to what time of the day it was, what day it was of the week and what week it was of the month. He woke up alone in a two-by-three-meter cell. The only illumination he got was the gleam of the seams of the steel walls. He had soiled his pants so many times that the crotch had already caked.

 

One week of what seemed to Roman as years, his captors transferred him to a regular cell. The bunker bed had foam covered neatly with an immaculately white bed sheets that bore: AFP Property, the pillow was not bad either. Some of his bruises and contusions have already healed albeit those that are usually exposed were still sore. Roman would still wince every time he took a leak.




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[i] The names of all characters have been changed for obvious reasons. “Roman” survived a hypertensive stroke in the later part of 2009. He has since been inactive in the movement or in activists’ parlance “lie-low.”