Ruptures 6

Once info on the legislative building was complete, the SIU (that is, Ka Dave, Ka Jake and I, as knowledge of the operation was limited only to the general staff) turned instant carpenters in making a miniature scale model of the structure, duplicating every vital aspect, for instance that blank wall which is actually a secret exit. For the scale model, cardboard would be easier to work, but Ka Arman’s instruction was that the job should be able to bear the strain then on the shoulders of NPA men up steep hills onward to an NPA mountain camp.

To carry out the seizure of the Batasan were battle- tested partisans whose expertise is limited to hit-and-run tactics. Since fighters from the battlefields could not be quartered for long in the city, their arrival in Metro Manila should lead directly to the planned attack on the legislative. Therefore, they had to be familiarized with the Batasan terrain much ahead of D-Day. Hence the need for the Batasan scale model in wood in order to survive the wear-and-tear of transport.

But more than filling in the need for advance familiarization with the Batasan terrain by NPA model actually served to expose the hypocrisy of Jose Maria Sison in regard to the Kintanar plan of city insurrection. Too much mileage has been given Sison in his attacks against the Kintanar strategy, calling it by such demagoguery as putschism and military adventurism which he discredits as a violations of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse- tung thought ( the popular spelling of Mao’s name being used here). And yet, didn’t Sison know about this plan early on? He did! Though Sison had been captured and incarcerated way back in 1977 and therefore had been in prison for nine years, he had constantly been in contact with his wife Julie de Lima (how related to Leila?) through whom he exercised omnipotence and omnipresence over the party through all those, oh, too long nine years.

In the case of the Batasan attack, the scale model built by the SIU had to pass scrutiny by the revolution’s First Lady before being delivered to the intended parties in the Cordilleras.

It was a humid afternoon, in the attic of my concrete, bamboo and nipa house, when in the presence of Ka Jun and Ka Charlie I presented the SIU-built Batasan scale model to Julie, who appeared to be interested but for the fact that before long I realized she was ho- humming through my magnificent performance. Anyway, this doesn’t matter much to me. The important thing is that the planned Batasan attack was completely made known to her – and therefore to her sovereign husband – complete with detailed description of the operation to be carried out, and she did not express any objection, thereby implying, at least to me, approval.

So now here we are, the eve of the EDSA rising in February. The whole nation is agog over the surge of the Cory civil disobedience campaign protesting the Marcos win in the snap presidential elections.The campaign has seemed to gain momentum, now crescendoing to a

In a house in the outskirts of Marikina, the leading body of the CPP is meeting precisely to address the situation. And the proposed means of addressing it is the Kintanar program of city insurrection. All preparations have been in place: the raid on the UP armory with trucks ready for the transport of arms; the detonating devices for bringing down the footbridges on EDSA; the hostaging of US troops at the Clark airfield; seizure of major banks; takeover of rich subdivisions and of the MIA, etc.

Everyone in the meeting reaches the consensus: go ahead with the plans.

The only one who is undecided is the CPP chairman and head of the military commission, Kumander Bilog. During our last talk shortly before his death more than a year ago, Ka Arman disclosed that it was Bilog who took time deciding on the matter in that critical period of four days in February 1986. In the evening made up his mind: “Go.”

Alas, but the following day, February 26, the papers were ablaze with news accounts of Marcos and before to exile in Hawaii.

Had Bilog made his decision even just a day ahead, Philippine history would have taken an entirely different course.

The death anniversary of Ka Arman last September 17 saw a number of comrades in the revolutionary movement making a reunion. Among those who attended was Bilog. I asked him why it took him so long to decide in those four critical days of February.

“( Couldn’t be won yet),” was his curt answer.