Married by the bullet

MRI scan showed that had she been admitted even a few minutes later, she would have been in a coma.

At the hospital, I took my mom’s phone out in an attempt to call her sisters, but my father shouted at me, saying I was not allowed to inform my mom’s siblings, or any of our in the hospital.

“Nak (Child), don’t argue with your papa. Put the phone down. Don’t call your Auntie Angie anymore,” my mom said.

“But, Ma. They have a right to know.” “Just obey your papa, Nak.” Confused, I sat back down and prayed. I prayed for God to nudge my Auntie Angie and Auntie Tatutz to call happened without me disobeying my mother’s request.

Less than ten minutes after my prayer, my Auntie Tatutz called. My mom had barely put her phone down, when it began to ring again. It was her feisty sister Angie. Auntie Angie, instantly observing the change in my mom’s manner of speaking, asked: “Sister, what happened to you? You

Tears began to fall silently down my mama’s partially numb cheeks as she told my Aunt that she was in the hospital.

Time deposit wiped out

It was only during this time when I found out that mama’s time-deposit account, all her hard-earned savings for almost a decade, was gone.

Up until this point, I thought my mom was just being careful about not touching her time deposit whenever she called me, asking if I could wire her P5,000 to P10,000 so she could treat herself to her “favorite resto, salon and massage.”

The only odd thing was that she was wire the funds immediately. She would give me a specific time and date when she was certain she would be in front of an ATM machine. Only then would she give me another call to

In reality, my mom was hungry, isolated from her support system, stuck at her home-cum-prison in Terry Hills, and had no money for regular medical exams and maintenance medicines. Like many abused women, she did her best to conceal her suffering from her sinister husband, so as to prevent worse repercussions.

I was half asleep beside mama at home before her attack. She was, as usual, watching her favorite TV series “Mulawin” on her phone right after we said our prayers for Grandma Coleta. She then took a pause from watching her favorite teleserye, and nudged me, “Nak,gisingkapa (you’re still awake)?”

I hugged my mother and giggled a bit because I always found it amusing whenever she would wake me up just to ask me if I’m already sleeping. I then said :“Ma…gi sing na akoul it (I’m awake). Why? Dapattulogkana rin (You should be asleep).”

Out of the blue, my mom said, grimly: “Nak, promise me. If I die, pray for me every 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. on the days that you will remember me… Please promise me.”

A heavy teardrop streamed down my left cheek, but I tried to cheer up my mom by saying ,“Yes, ma, I promise. Per ow a gk am una mags ali tang ganyan.Kahit lesbian ako, promise! Mag-a a saw at ala ga a kong la la ki, at bibigy an kit an gapo.`Wa gk am una mags ali tang gan yan,o kay? Mahaba pabuhaymo,ma ( Don’t talk like that. Even if I’m a lesbian, I promise, I’m going to marry a guy and give you a grandchild. Don’t talk like that. You still have a long life).”

I painfully listened to her talk about her other dying wishes. I spent 19 to 22 hours each day for another month more after that, wide awake, taking care of her, cleaning her private parts, brushing her teeth, massaging her by the hour, and making her laugh.

I witnessed my sadistic father simply stare and do nothing for more than half an hour after my mom’s stroke. My recurring dreams from May and June were manifesting into the dark reality I desper my mom to be rushed to the hospital. I happily took care of her alone, full-time, without the aid of caregivers but with the occasional help of nurses to clean her and of her hospitalization.

About three to four hours each day, her husband would show up. I a short nap because Tony dropped by. But whenever my mom would call out, “Ton, palihog (help)…,” my father would ignore her, and if she kept on calling out for help from her hospital bed, her husband would snap, “Ayaw’g sabadiha! (Shut up!)”

So despite my sleeplessness, I would get up, struggle to turn my mom to her other side, whip out my bulkyyet-trusty travel massager device, and begin massaging all her sore areas while chanting a healing prayer. As

soon as my mom fell asleep soundly, I would go back to the hospital couch beside her bed, and took a power nap.

‘Ka Linda’

At the back of my mind, the worst-case had a mistress. Maybe a second family.

Since I had long been estranged from my abusive father, I honestly really couldn’t care less, except that on my mother’s 65th birthday on November 27th last year, my supposedly “jobless” father, according the attending caregiver, “did not even show up the whole morning till early evening” at the hospital for almost four months.

Early evening of November 27th, I surprised my mama at the hospital with some of my good friends from the Armed Forces of the Philippines to celebrate her 65th birthday. We brought Mama a birthday cake, sang her birthday songs, and danced to cheer her up. I knew it was going to be her last birthday alive.

Sending a courtesy-text to my typically absent father, Tony was forced to show up more than half an hour later at the hospital, without any - ers at hand. Clearly, Tony had neither genuine love nor respect for my mom. He arrived nearly 8 p.m.

on a daily basis, I requested my closest friends in the military to send people to follow my father around for a few out about the mysterious “Linda” my mother never had the chance to meet face to face.

Not only was Linda my father’s “other woman.” Linda, as it turns — albeit not the legal one under the Philippine government.

Linda is Ka Tonyo’s CPP- NPA wife, the woman he married “by the bullet” in the 1970s. Soldiers call it a “guerilla wedding.”

All for the Maoist communist-terrorist cause, Tony Lim Toledo legally married Virginia Somonod on June 5, 1983 to give him a convenient cover. Linda strategically married under Philippine law a rich businessman from Northern Mindanao.

All these years, Tony and Linda made people believe they amicably “broke up” as boyfriend and girlfriend after the 1970s. In truth, they never stopped seeing each other.

Together, according to military sources, Ka Tonyo and Ka Linda masterminded kidnap-for-ransom activities in Northern Mindanao—even abducting people related by blood to Linda’s rich “legal husband,” as part of their modern resource generation for the Communist Party and the NPA.

Simeon, patriot father of Ka Tonyo

Simeon Ortiz Toledo, an Air Force veteran under the Air Force, had two teenage sons who became members of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM). Antonio Lim Toledo (a.k.a. “Ka Tonyo Lim”/ Tony / TonyBoy), Simeon’s eldest

Roderick, the younger brother of Ka Tonyo, second child of Simeon, innocently followed the footsteps of his Marxist “Manong (older brother) TonyBoy” and became a KM member as well.

When Simeon’s second-born was about to be arrested past midnight by in Bulua, Cagayan de Oro City, my grandfather brought out his guns, and was ready to kill, even to die, to keep his beloved son Roderick safe.

Simeon’s eldest son Tony secretly knew of the impending and inevitable arrest. To prevent bloodshed, Tony said he removed all the bullets from Simeon’s guns the night before the

military seized his brother Roderick.

Tony claims he was able to secretly remove his records from the KM “list.” He said he was “taking a nap under his desk” at the KM headquarters when he woke up to serendipitously witness two young clearly looking for the KM membership roll as a basis for the next round of arrests, interrogation and detainment.

Tony claims he “desperately looked

After the shrill scream of terror from the housekeeper downstairs, Simeon saw the entire compound in Bulua completely surrounded by soldiers. He ran back upstairs to get his guns. He was outraged upon discovering all gun barrels empty. He also could not

The military only had evidence to arrest one son, instead of two. Simeon knew it was bound to happen. He served the military but with a heavy heart, he tolerated his sons who had joined the Maoist forces. His fellow patriot and own brother in law, Philippine Army Col. Ramon Roa-Neri, criticized Simeon for “having no control over his own sons.”

Japanese occupation. I bombed a lot of certainly do not agree with the ideology my sons have chosen now, but it’s their them well to think for themselves... If they get arrested, I will still do my best to protect them.”

Perfect cover

Ka Tonyo Lim is notorious for claiming without any medical proof that his own father and daughter suffered from bipolar disorder. He does this to destroy the credibility of any close family member who may eventually blow his cover.

He falsely claimed to his legal wife that his father Simeon suffered from bipolar disorder. I independently inquired about the medical records of my grandfather in V. Luna General Hospital (the Armed Forces’ General Hospital). No such medical history

Rosemarie Toledo-Tandog, younger sister of Tony and a medical professional, was surprised to learn that her eldest brother had claimed their father was bipolar.

“Manong Tonyboy really said that? But Daddy is not bipolar… I’m both a nurse and a doctor… I would know if Daddy really was…I took care of - lar,” she said in an interview.

KM stopped keeping a database of its members and leaders. Without any paper trail to serve as evidence to justify arrests, “unlisted” pioneer KM leaders like Ka Tonyo and his beloved Linda became more effective communist operatives who continued to serve the CPP-NPA for decades.

Like Ka Tonyo Lim, Linda maintains an excellent cover.

Until today, Ka Tonyo and his guerrilla wife Linda serve central roles in generating funds for the Communist Party; collecting revolutionary taxes in Northern Mindanao; exploiting the war-torn, poverty-stricken, and poorly educated Lumad (natives of Mindanao) to push them to extremism as a means of expanding NPA recruitment (even in the recently wartorn Marawi); and guiding the New People’s Army and other similarly purposed organizations to persist in bring down by violence the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, and to forcibly seize political power in order that they may replace the existing political, social, economic and legal order with an entirely new one based on communism.