Enrolled at....

Chapter 17 –Enrolled at Lyceum of the Philippines, Manila in June 1965

In May, 1965 I went down from Baguio City to Manila. It was raining slightly in Baguio City when I took the bus about 7:00 A.M. On the way down Cannon Road, I felt the winds were getting stronger. Along the way, I saw some fallen trees along Pangasinan and Tarlac highway. A strong typhoon was hitting northern Luzon.

When I arrived in Manila, it was about 4:00 P.M. Manila was flooded. I proceeded to San Andres Bukid in Malate, where some friends, where waiting for me. They have returned home from Baguio City, where we worked together as photograaphers until two weeks ago. They were living together in a big room. It was a comfortable room the have rented in an old house on the side or the river. The area was heavily populated with several thousands of squatters home inside. There was a small passage where residents passed, made of 4 pieces of bamboos that were stretched and tied together about half kilometer long. It was a slum in San Andres Bukid, near Singalong in Malate.

I made plans to enrol that June. To earn my daily needs, I joined my friends to work as itinerant photographer. There were 3 areas where we found good business. One was Santo Domingo Church in Quezon City. Here every Sunday, thousand of Catholics go to mass. And there were some 6 masses from morning until late afternoon. On Saturday mornings, we were at Dewey Boulevard (now Roxas), where many families come to bath their children. During that time, Dewey Boulevard has still clean seasshores. And many children stroll on the seashore half days.

On Sunday afternoons, I’m at Luneta Park. Here photography business were brisk. Lcal tourists from all over Metro Manila comes. They stroll on the wide Luneta Parks, visit Rizal’s Monument, sat on the loans all over the park and listened, while gallivanting around to music of the 50’ , 60’s and 70’s from singers of the time – Elvis Presley, Patti Page, Karen Carpenter, Connie Frances, Perry Como and other singers.

Often in the evenings, there were concerts every Sundays, with musical talents from Metro Manila. The beautification of Luneta Parks was made possible thru a dynamic leadership of Teodoro Valencia, Manila Times columnists, who was made incharge of Luneta Parks committee on beautification.

Working two days weekly, and delivering the pictures during weekdays. I earned some amounts for my daily needs – food, lodging, transportation money to school and other needs. I was processing my scholarship as a son of a Filipino veteran, given by the Philippine Veteans Administration.

Sunday mornings, we were at Lyceum Quadrangle or at Camp Crame, where we have ROTC trainings. I took my subjects most in the mornings. In the afternoons, after a few hours in the library, I go and deliver pictures to my customers around Metro Manila. Often, on Saturday evenings, I joined a friend, also a photographer of Reyes Studio in Manila, covering birthdays, weddings, college students dances and other special occasions in different big restaurants in the city. Photography was a delicate, fast, light works that needs lots of imagination before pressing the camera’s shutter. Taking pictures was an art. I enjoyed the work. But there were times, when I have no money, specially during rainy days.

One Saturday morning at Dewey Boulevard, I met two young girls in white, with two children, strolling at the boulevard. They were trying to breath fresh airs from the sea. I went to them and invited them to take their pictures. I showed my sample pictures. They looked at my pictures. It was six pictures of beautiful young girls I took pictures in Baguio City. These were my sample pictures. The girls agreed. I took about 12 shots. I asked for their address and telephone numbers. They wrote this on my Address Book.

I do not take down payments for my pictures. I requested they pay it on delivery. That was one way to establish trust. The girls were living at Forbes Park in Makati. This was an exclusive village. Only the richest families lived at Forbes Park. It’s the billionaires village of Metro Manila.

Few days later, I took a bus to Forbes Park. The athmosphere around the billionares village can be seen and felt. The surrounding block fences. The gate of the village. The uniformed Security Guards. It seem to tell, it was a different place. It’s the village of the richest, most influential and powerful people of the country. I learned later, President Diosdado Macapagal and other men of wealth and power lived, also at Forbes Park.

I walked to the gate where several security guards were standing near the guard house. I politely asked for the address and showed the pictures I will deliver. The guards looked at me. He touched my waist around and pants down to my feet. He gave me the directions. Forbes Park was really the billionaire’s village. It was different place from all other subdivisions I saw in Metro Manila

I knocked at the door of the home with the address. A girl opened a small window

of the gate. Recognizing me, she opened the door. I came in. It was a very beautiful and expensive place. It was different from any home I saw in Iloilo. I gave the girls the pictures. They looked at them. After seeing themselves in the pictures, they were really glad. It seems I was able to capture, what they want in pictures – their beauty, modes, they way they stood, their smiles.

While they were looking at the pictures, a very beautiful woman came out from one of the rooms. I greeted her. I smiled to her. She acknowledged my greetings. Then she looked at the pictures. She told me that I took good pictures. The girls asked me to take more pictures of them at home.

The beautiful woman told the girls to give me snacks. She was a foreigner. Very beautiful and also friendly. She has the bearings of beauty queens. She told me she was leaving. She asked me to take pictures of the girls and her children While I was having my snack, I asked the girls who their boss was. They told me, she was Armi Kusela Hilario, the former Miss Universe. I gasped. If I only knew, I could have shaked her hands.

Or I could have requested her to have a picture with me. Then, I could use our picture as sample pictures while taking pictures of local tourists in Manila. If ever, I would have took a stool to stand, for Armi Kusela was a tool woman. I am glad that I have chance to look at close range and talked for a few words, a Miss Universe. I have seen a Miss Universe only in pictures. I learned later, Armi Kusela was the first Miss Universe of the world. She married Virgilio Hilario, a Philippine businessman.

I continued my studies at Lyceum of the Philippines. It was my 3^rd Year. I took Political Science. Lyceum was considered one of the nationalists schools in the Philippines. It was founded by the family of Dr. Jose Laurel. President of the Philippines during the Japanese occupation. I heard, Senator Claro M. Recto and Senator Lorenzo Tanada, foremost nationalist senators were members of the Lyceum Board. When I was at Lyceum, or few years before, Congressman Jose B.Laurel, was the Speaker of the House of Reprsentatives. Dr. Sotero Laurel was Lyceum president. He later ran and won as Congressman in the 4^th District of Manila.

My tuition and fees at Lyceum was paid by the Philippine Veterans Administration (PVA). I was given scholarship by the government for my father was a veteran of the US –Japanese War. I studied for a year under the scholarship. But a year later, when I was employed by the Philippines Herald, I gave my scholarship to my sister, Elvira, who was First Year, a working student, taking education at Central Philippine University.

My sister Elvira was a bright student. To helped her start her studies in Iloilo City, my mother accompanied her. Mother was a dressmaker and worked in a dress shop to help my sister’s tuition fees. The PVA scholarship made easier her studies. She finished Education at CPU and immediately, taught at Filamer Christian College, a Baptist college in Roxas City.

Then she transferred to Carles, as principal of Carles High School. She pursued her advanced studies, under the PVA scholarship, until she finished her Masters Decree. She took her doctoral studies and got her doctor’s degree. Dr. Elvira Bernal was a national –awardee as a high school principal in the country.

At Lyceum, I met some top student who came from different parts of the country. Many students from the provinces who came to Manila were rich. Their parents were well employed with top government positions. Some where children of businessmen.. Many were taking courses - law, business administration, journalism, foreign service, journalism, public administration and diplomacy.

Except for law, most of the courses I mentioned, were not offered in Iloilo. But many of my classmates, took business administration, foreign service, journalism, public admisnitration and became leaders in government. They joined the foreign service, some entered politics, some worked with national newspapers or started and joined newspapers in their provicnes.

In Manila, during my 3rd and 4^th year, I met leaders of the students. peasants and workers movements-- Labor leaders like Ignacio Lacsina. Professor Jose David Lapuz. I also met and have conversations with Prof. Pedro Lava, brother of Jesus Lava, the imprisoned Chairman of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) and Jose Lava, leaders of the Political Bureau of the PKP.

I also met Prof. Jose Ma. Sison, then Chairman of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM). Few years later, he went underground and helped re-organized the Communist Party of the Philippines. It was believed, he wrote ” Philippine Society and Revolution” the bible of Philippine revolutionaries, under the pen name, Amado Guerero.

By the middle of 1966, the students movement, together with the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), which was founded in 1965, started to become strongest student movement in Manila, mobilizing rallies in Congress, the US Embassy and Malacanan demanding ends to feudalism, US imperialism and beaureucratic capitalism, the three evils of Philippine society. The shout of the demonstrators, “Down with US Imperialism” reverberates in the corridors Manila.

It was during this time that the opposition to US war in Vietnam reached a high crescendo in the later part of President Deoscado Macapagal’s rule in 1965. It reached far with President Ferdinand Marcos presidency starting November 1965 with hard implications in the life of Filipinos and the Philippines in the coming years.

I saw at a distance Nur Misuari, who later went abroad and became the Chairman of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). I did not met Nur Misuari. But I saw him as a potential Muslim leader for our people. Other student activists that I met were Carlos del Rosario, a militant classmate who went missing during our student days. Alberto Espinas was one of the leaders of the rally at Lyceum, when most of the glass windows of Lyceum were broken with stones hurled by the students. This demonstrations and breaking of university glass windows reached most of the colleges in the University belt .

Alberto Espinas went to Iloilo and Panay and helped organized Kabataang Macabayan (KM). He also helped organized “Masang Prop” an organization of professionals in the struggle for social transformation. Alberto Espinas, who was, I think, the adviser of the KM in Iloilo. But he was killed in early 1973 by the military together with student activists who were branded by the military as subversives and rebels. He was part of the activists movements that organized and helped shaped the political horizons of the revolutionary movements Panay and Negros Occidental..

In Iloilo City, one afternoon, a thousand students from different school and colleges joined hands and march from the Provincial Hall, in a peaceful mass action. Then suddenly at Iznart Street, a student picked- up a stone and hurled at the glass windows of the department stores. Then other students picked up stones and throw at windows of buildings down to J.M. Basa. In less than an hour, many of the glass windows of buildings from Znart Street to J.M. Basa were broken down.

It seem that the throwing of this stones on commercial building were not part of the plans of the students. It was an un-organized students actions. As a result,, the students organized themselves to have concrete directions. The student leadership, organized FIST for a more collective directions of the student movements in Iloilo City.

It was during this time in Manila, that the opposition to US war in Vietnam become stronger in the later part of President Diosdado Macapagal’s rule in 1965. Students during a rally in Malacanan, asked President Macapagal not to send Filipino soldiers to Vietnam. But President Macapagal lost in the election.

When President Marcos won the presidency in November 1965, one of the first decisions he made was to send the PHILCAG to Vietnam. It was part of the efforts for the United States to defeat communism in Vietnam. But the US failed. The United States, using all their skills and powerful war equipments, lost the war to the Vietnamese. The US and the allied forces lost to rag tag army of Ho Chi Minh, the hero of the Vietnamese proletarian revolution.

It was also an opportunity and privilege that I was enrolled as a student of former President Diosdado Macapagal. Some months after his defeat by President Marcos, President Macapagal was persuaded to teach at Lyceum of the Philippines. I took two subjects under him that semester -- Philippine Foreign Relations and Far Eastern Relations and Problems. My background at CPU, has taught me to stand, even my knees were trembling and speak on issues that needs to be discussed.

I developed my mind to formulate questions that I asked my professors. One professor told me, I have an analytical mind. I have some question raised on President Macapagal’s lectures. He liked to be asked any question under the sun. I enrolled in two subjects under President Macapagal, for I want to see at close range how the mind of a former President of the Philippines thinks and works.

Lyceum students came from different parts of the country – from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. They ventured in Manila for greater opportunities. Many of my classmates and school mates later went to politics, journalisms, mass media, diplomacy, law and foreign service. Some joined the Communist Party and the New People’s Army, went underground. They said, to help lay the ground works for building a just society under a national democratic country thru a people’s revolution.