June 14, 1979 Arrest and Torture Under Philippine Martial Law Part I

Talon Village, Las Piñas

It was 3:00 am of June 14, 1979. Martial law was at its height in the Philippines. The EDSA Revolution was 6 years and 8 months away, and the dictator, President Ferdinand E. Marcos, still looked healthy and in control.

In 1979, Marcos was also unabashedly the Philippines Prime Minister, as provided by the 1973 Constitution. Querube Makalintal was the Speaker of the Interim Batasang Pambansa (IBP), and Fred Ruiz Castro was Chief Justice of the Philippine Supreme Court. In show business, Eat Bulaga was to premier that July 30 on RPN Channel 9, at noontime.

I was sleeping in a house at Princess Plum St., Talon Village, Las Piñas, Metro Manila. I was attending a conference of underground anti-martial law student organizers.

I arrived at this location the day before, at about noontime. That morning, at my house in Maysantol, Bulacan, Bulacan,  I woke up with a slight fever, so I decided not to attend this meeting anymore. However, at about 10 am, a fellow activist by the name of Elorde “Eloy” Calimoso, who was also attending that meeting, knocked on our side door. 

Eloy told me that Judith R. Fabic, the leader of our group, thinking that I had decided not to come, had sent for me, to make sure that I was present at the meeting. Eloy then told me that the above address was the venue of the meeting.

My Mother Begs Me Not to Go

When I told my mother, Eneida Enriquez Reyes, that I was running a temperature, she begged me not to go because, as always, she was very careful about my health. I politely told her I had to attend the meeting, and started to prepare to leave. I did not know that that decision would affect the rest of my life.

After I had taken a shower and packed three days worth of clothes and stuff, I and Eloy went to the bus stop about 100 meters from my home and boarded a waiting “German Espiritu Liner” bus. After a few minutes, it was off to take us to EDSA Balintawak, Caloocan City. The trip lasted about an hour. At EDSA Balintawak, we took a “minibus” bound for Alabang, Muntinglupa.

After about 45 minutes, we arrived at busy Alabang. We took a tricycle there, and Eloy told the driver to take us to Talon Village. After about fifteen minutes, we reached Talon Village. Eloy started to instruct the driver as to where we would go. Finally, we arrived at the above address.

Talon Village was a typical Filipino middle class subdivision. It was a clean and well-developed housing project. The houses were not bad, and a bit on the expensive side.

Now, nearly 35 years later, all I can remember of the house exterior was a small gate about 2.5 meters wide  and  2 meters tall, consisting of steel bars painted white and vertically spaced about 6 inches apart.

A Summing-up and Planning Conference

As you opened the gate, there was a short walk-way, about 6 steps long, after which one reaches the front door, which I remember was of the sliding type. It was a 2-story house.

When Eloy and I got into the house, the group was having lunch on a big and round dining table, which was good for 8 persons. I joined them in having  rice and fried fish in sweet and sour sauce. While eating, we were already having an informal conference, talking about what the agenda was going to be.

It was to be a “summing-up” meeting, where the group was to discuss the experience of the past year or so, derive “lessons” from that experience, and, finally, map out a “tactical program” for the year ahead. We estimated the meeting to last for 3 to four days, but we were prepared for a week if needed.  

Those present in the house, aside from me, Judith, and Eloy were: Geoffrey “Jun” Fabic Jr. (Judith’s husband), Augusto Añonuevo, Sylvia Flores, Ruth Santos, Avelina Enrile, Jeremias Celestino, and the house caretaker, Rolando Marañon. All in all, there were 10 of us.

After lunch, the group rested. We resumed the meeting at about 3 pm. The group was in high spirits, and the jokes flew, at the meeting’s expense. But the group did not care, because we were just in the process of preparing the agenda, and discussing such things as house rules, individual assignments, and security measures. And besides, we thought, the official start of the meeting was the next day yet.

We decide to Retire After Dinner

The group decided to retire after dinner, and devote the rest of the night to read, share stories, and otherwise relax and rest. It was going to be a gruelling conference, as activists in those days were wont to do ----- we were just setting our minds to it.

By 11 midnight, weary of mind and body, we had all fallen asleep. The meeting was to start at 8 am the following day. We all slept on the wood floor, using improvised mats made from large cigarette cartons. I don’t remember if I even had a pillow. I must have used my bag.

There were 2 to 3 bedrooms on the second floor. I shared a bedroom with Eloy and someone else. I knew it was 3 am, because I immediately looked at my blue-faced Zodiac watch as I was awakened by what sounded like a hundred dogs barking. Simultaneous with the barking were loud thuds. It sounded as though someone was trying to break down something.

I was not yet panicking, because the thuds sounded like they were coming from afar, and definitely not from our group’s place.  I would learn later on that the sound was made by intelligence agents breaking down the door of a house.

After about fifteen minutes, the barking and the thuds stopped. Then I heard some men talking. By this time, I had formed the initial judgment, wishful though it might have been, that the barangay or police had just foiled a burglary. 

White Fear

After a few minutes, that impression changed into white fear, as I heard the gates of our house being opened vigorously. That was when I got up from the floor. That was also the moment I shouted as loud as I can to my comrades that the house was being raided.

I got out of the second floor room which I shared with Eloy and someone else, and, from the landing at the top of the stairs, l glanced down at the living room.

Rolando Marañon was already, albeit slowly, opening the living room’s sliding door. The people outside must have knocked, but I did not hear it. Rolando looked up at me as he made the last motions in opening the door. 

When the door was completely open, the first person I saw was a man of average built and height, with brown complexion, with long hair, and wearing an unzipped dark jacket which revealed a white t-shirt underneath.

He had a menacing Uzi submachinegun slung around his neck, whose muzzle was pointed to his right.  Stepping into the house, he looked up at me and smiled, as if mocking me.

The House Crawls with Armed Agents

This man was was immediately followed by three men, who were armed with M-16s. More armed men with long firearms followed, and soon the ground floor of the house was crawling with them. But like the first man, the agents that piled in were relaxed, with their weapons just hanging.

The men, mostly in their twenties and many sporting long hair, seemed  to know we were unarmed, probably through long surveillance, and that they had us. By this time, I knew the moment I was dreading had come: I was about to be arrested by the Marcos military.

I had read so much about warrantless arrests and “salvaging” (extrajudicial killings) under Marcos’ martial law. I also knew much about the much abused “Arrest, Search, and Seizure Orders” (ASSO) that the martial law authorities used to legitimize their arrests.

The military authorities infamously just filled up the blanks on the ASSO forms after they made the arrests. After a person is arrested under an ASSO, he or she can be detained indefinitely without charges, or tortured in a military "safehouse." 

As a student leader in the University of the Philippines (UP) I had written many manifestoes and position papers denouncing these human rights violations. Now, I thought, I was about to be the victim.

The entire group was now probably awake, because I heard them talking frantically. About three or four joined me in peering down at the living room from the stairs upper landing, awaiting what was going to happen. We heard a loud sound of something hitting the floor, somewhere in the kitchen.

"An Unlikely Event"

We later found out that this was the big plastic bag full of our underground documents, 1 to 2 kilos heavy, being thrown away by someone in our group who was assigned to secure them, or get rid of them, just for this eventuality.

He or she mistook a window in the other bedroom as leading to the outside, when in fact it only led to the inside. Having been in it for less than 24 hours, we were totally unfamiliar with the house. The agents must have feasted on those papers.

The day before, while we were discussing security measures, I had casually remarked that a raid on the house was “an unlikely event,”  borrowing an often heard term from the Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight attendant’s safety spiel before the plane takes off. I had no idea how wrong I was.  

The first man who entered the house shouted for all of us to get down and assemble in the living room. I quickly inferred that he was an officer or a team leader. We all obeyed like sheep and single filed down the stairs, but I have forgotten in what order.

All I know is that when I reached the living room, Jun, and Judith were already sitting on the sofa frozen with fear, and Sylvia was quivering on a single cushioned chair. I remember she too, had a slight temperature that day. As for me,  having been motioned brusquely by the Uzi bearer, I soon joined Jun and Judith on the sofa.

                                                                                    

                                                                                    

This is the mugshot Regional Security Unit - 4 (RSU-4) agents took of me during our

 first day of detention at Camp Crame. The date, clearly written 

on the board, was June 14, 1979. I was 24 years old. 

The Interrogations and Torture Begin

The entire group, all 10 of us, were now seated, 4 in the living room, and 6 in the dining area. The dreaded interrogations began, and as I looked around I estimated there were 1 to 2 agents grilling each of us.

We had all long before mentally prepared ourselves for this moment, but I remember being horror-struck  nevertheless. However, I felt the adrenaline flowing in me as one agent poked an M-16 muzzle to my face, and asked me my name. Somehow, I was regaining my composure as my mind raced.

I told the agent my name was Roberto Enriquez Reyes, and that I came from Bulacan, Bulacan, and that my father was Legazpi City, Albay Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge Domingo Coronel Reyes.  

Another agent asked what we were doing there, and I told him we were members of the Student Christian Movement (SCM) of the Philippines, and that we were having a conference.

The agent shook his head slowly as in utter disbelief, and as he did this his face showed extreme anger. He repeated the question, only this time he was shouting and fuming mad, as if I was insulting his intelligence. When I gave him the same answer, he and the other agent started punching, kicking, and slapping me repeatedly.

Punches, Kicks, Slaps, and Curses

The punches, kicks, and slaps differed in strength, but mostly they were strong enough to make me wince in pain.  The blows landed on different parts of my body, but mainly on my tummy, upper arms, shins, and thighs. When they hit my face, it was a slap, and not a punch. The slaps landed with a sting, and I remember the pain lingering after each hit.

I also remember biting my tongue through all of this, which made me spit blood. By now the adrenaline was in full flow, and I actually thought my 24 year old body was weathering the torture. 

Each punching, kicking, and slapping sequence would last a few seconds, after which they would curse me and ask (in Tagalog) the same questions over and over. “What are you doing here?”, “Are you members of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP)?” , “What is the name of your CPP unit?” , “Who is your CPP political officer?”

“Do you know this person (pointing to a photograph)?” , “Where are your other UG (underground) houses?”, “Who are the members of your CPP higher organ (HO)?”, "Are you cadres of the National Democratic Front (NDF)?", "Who are the CPP members in the SCM and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP)?"

I will never forget the chaotic din of questions that ensued in the house, as more than 20 intelligence operatives interrogated and tortured us all at the same time. As this happened, I wondered to myself what the neighbors must have been thinking.

When I would not answer the questions, or when the agents thought I was making up answers, they would resume punching, kicking, and slapping me. Fortunately for me, I was able to hold my own. I did not mention any name, address, or group that would have incriminated or led to the arrest of anyone.

This is a picture of the front page of Political Detainees Update, a newsletter of the Task Force Detainees (TFD) announcing our group's arrest on June 14, 1979. My name is encircled, just above the yellow highlighted name of Jeremias Celestino. Photo fron Jeremias Celestino's FB page.

We Resist the Torture

My companions were undergoing the same kind of torture as me. It did not matter if they were female, Judith, Sylvia, Ruth, and Avelina were punched, kicked, and slapped just the same. In fact, their situation was worse --- they were also touched in their private parts as they were tortured. To their credit, they resisted the torture as well as I did, if not better. Like me, they did not confess any name, address, or group.

Resisting the torture was a two-fold thing: you had to endure the pain and the terror, and, you had to think clearly, outwit your tormentor, and not reveal anything. To this day, I am proud of myself and my group --- that we successfully held the fort that fateful day.

After about 30 minutes, the interrogations and the torture stopped. The agents handcuffed and blindfolded us. However, my eyes were not totally blacked out.  Through small openings between my cheekbones and my blindfold I could see downwards, albeit strugglingly. It also helped that the subdivision’s streetlights were bright enough. 

I therefore knew I was being led outside the house, and outside the gate. Now on the street, I heard the doors of a car being opened. I tilted my head backwards, in such a way that, through the same openings, I could see what kind of car I was being led to. I did this at the risk, I thought, of being rebuked or hit again by an agent.

It was a white Ford Escort, and it was parked facing left. I discerned that we were going around the car’s closed trunk, after which I knew I was being shoved into the car's back seats, going through its  already opened right back door.

Matutuwa si Presidente Nito! (The President Will be Delighted with This!)

As I took my place on the right most seat, I felt there were already two persons there. They asked me who I was, and as I identified myself, I already knew I was sitting next to Judith and Jun Fabic, in that order.

An agent was already at the wheel when I entered the car. I tried to look at my watch but it was too dark in the car. I just estimated that it was 4 or 4:30 am.

About 15 seconds later, another agent opened the right front door and occupied the right front seat.  He excitedly threw what I made out to be a handgun on the dashboard. He then exclaimed in Tagalog: “Matutuwa si presidente nito!” (“The president will be delighted with this!”)

By his voice, I was sure that the agent who just spoke was the same Uzi toting man who contemptuously entered the house first, an hour or so ago.   

The engine started with a loud vroom, and I felt the driver step on the gas abruptly as the Escort lurched forward and sped away.