D: So you were actually with Makibaka?
L: Actually from Causa, I went to KM (when I became full-time), then women’s desk of KM, then Makibaka. Then martial law was imposed. I was in Roxas City when that happened.
My first arrest was on March 29 in Roxas in 1973. I only stayed overnight because I escaped immediately from Roxas Camp. [Laughs.] My companions were beaten up. I was the only female. We were having a meeting on the beach. People who saw us there (we were strangers to the place) reported us to the military. It was not easy to maintain the appearance that we were students because we were not really jamming [disco]. I was separated from the rest and put in the officers’ quarters where I had access to the doors to the main house, so I was able to escape. One of my companions, a relative, was caught because of my escape and he was killed with a pipe right in jail.
My next arrest…and I can remember where I was, only because of my arrests [laughs], was in Antique, also in the urban area—1974 maybe [July 1973, according to Judy Taguiwalo], when several among us were killed. Last year we celebrated their 25th death anniversary. When we were in Antique we were able to establish a network. We were having a meeting when we were subjected to a checkpoint search. We engaged in a firefight. The dead included Vic, Virgil Ortigas, Bert Espinas, and Ferdie Arceo from Manila.
D: Yes, Arceo. He was our neighbor in Diliman. I know his mother Thelma.
L: I was arrested then, and Judy, too. We were brought to Cebu and Manila and tortured. [Judy Taguiwalo writes that the torture was in Iloilo.]
D: What kind?
L: Many. We were asked to undress. [Laughs.] Judy went through the water cure. We were presumed to be hardcore, so we were taken to Cebu and from Cebu to Manila.
In Manila, FLAG under Jose Diokno was active, so I was released after two years, or a year and something, so I returned to Iloilo. I was released in October and in November I was captured again. [Laughs.] This time I was already in the countryside. I was again brought to prison in Cebu and Antique until I returned to Iloilo where I married Tomas in jail. Then we escaped.
That must have been 1977. That time Commander Waling-Waling was assassinated.
D: A man?
L: No, a woman. She’d been a Huk, and must have been 60 when she was shot. So I escaped with Tomas. Then I was in the city for several months when I was captured again.
D: How many times were you captured and jailed?
L: Five times, until the time of Cory. So that was my fourth time in jail. Again I was brought to several places. Then when I was brought to jail here, I was with Concha Araneta. That must have been in 1980, on Marcos’ birthday. There were eight of us who escaped from the Iloilo Detention; with me were Cleofe and Concha. We were four women and four men. We planned a long time for this escape.
After this escape, I was able to stay underground for seven years before I was captured, this time under Cory. I was not released until the presidency of Ramos. I was over two years in jail.
In 1987 Tay Baler was investigated and killed. I was being interrogated in jail when the military was preparing the troops, I believe to arrest Tay Baler, a peasant leader. But in fact he was assassinated along with his children, and the order was that he was to be killed. I felt it so badly because there was nothing I could do.
That was 1987 when there was talk about a “democratic space” under Cory Aquino. It was also that year in September when Lean (Alejandro) was killed. Those things happened simultaneously, Lean’s and Tay Baler’s murders and my arrest.
