His provenance nurtured his politics that spanned six decades of the nation’s historic past. Saturnino Cunanan Ocampo was born to a family of landless tenants in Pampanga in Central Luzon, the cradle of agrarian unrest, a background that predisposed him to a life of political dissent.
They put their lives on the line for their vision of a better society. Scores died or disappeared, more were tortured, but many have survived the martial law years from 1972 to 1981, or more accurately, 1986. But while some made the supreme sacrifice in their struggle for social change, a few have chosen to give up their aspirations for an easier life in the corridors of political power.
That Sorsogon Representative Salvador Escudero III was locked in a losing battle with cancer was never apparent in our exchange of phone messages starting August 3 when SIM requested this interview. The din in the background suggested he was in a crowded place. “I’m in the market, actually,” chirped the man whom we know for his unassuming ways. Unlike other public officials with their ostentatious ways, Escudero lived in a modest bungalow in Sanville, Quezon City.
I dig my files and clippings and I realize that this assignment is somewhat discomfiting. A flood of memories surges, tsunami-like. I feel the warmth of triumph and of freedom long-won, but also feel sadness over the loss of those I had met and known and written about.
His academic record, he reveals, is less than stellar. Truth be told, Antonio C. Moncupa had an average of 79.9 in grade school and was kicked out of high school at the Christ the King Seminary after just one year for his “restless” and “disruptive” ways.
What are our children learning about martial law from their history class? Selective memory might make the older generation remember martial law for its most enduring effects on them, but today’s youngsters get their glimpse of that era in recommended doses through their Araling Panlipunan textbook. The subject is taught to high school freshmen during the fourth quarter of the schoolyear.
Aba, Libé—Ang Bayan, Liberation, underground papers published by the CPP/NDF ABB/sparrows—Alex Boncayao Brigade, urban guerrillas or partisans of the NPA Amasona—female NPA Armed struggle—refers to the belief among
You’d think she would’ve packed her designer togs by now and fled to some exotic locale or cosmopolitan city-at least until the legal issues and housing scandal involving her father and brother have died down.
Delfin Lee has been called many names by his critics which, by this time, would be in the thousands including-according to the syndicated estafa charges filed against him—many would-be homeowners who once trusted his vision to build for them first class residential communities at socialized housing prices.
To get into the core of Erik Spoelstra’s being Filipino is to start right at the very beginning: There was this young kid with uncombed hair wearing a white cotton shirt and smiling into a camera. Beside him, the computer monitor was running a grainy video footage of a basketball game.
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