Ma. Luisa Pusa Dominado; A Filipino Woman Fighter for Freedom, Justice and Liberation By:Rudy Bernal

MA. LUISA POSA –DOMINADO, Fighter for Social Justice, Economic & Political Transformation

Maria Luisa Posa-Dominado was one of the colourful women leaders of the militants movement in the Western Visayas and even the Philippines. She was of brilliant mind, determined, lovely, courageous and a committed fighter for freedom, justice and human rights. She was one of the longest women detainees of the tyrannical Marcos martial rule and what was called repressive Cory Aquino government.

But even the prison cells cannot contain her love for freedom. For her committed work with the Ilongo masses. Five times she was arrested and detained in military stockades during Presidents Marcos and Aquino regimes. But several times also, she released herself from military detentions, sometimes with the help of his friends and re-joined her friends in the struggle to help free the poor and deprived masses from colonialism, poverty, oppression, exploitations and injustice.

After several cases filed by the military against her were dismissed by the courts for lack of evidence,, Ma. Luisa Posa-Dominado, dedicated her time and energy in the legal and parliamentary struggle, believing that thru this process the poor and deprived , thru education and organized will gain power to change their present situations. She served as spokesperson of the Society of Ex-Detainees for Liberation, Against Detention for Amnesty (SELDA), an association of political detainees and their relatives. Together, they work to provide them and their families with legal, moral and spiritual support. She participated in the peaceful political efforts, campaigning with militant Partylists for Congressional seats in the Philippine Congress.

She was a daughter of the First Quarter Storms of the 1970’s. The nationalist and revolutionary thoughts of the decade , caught, influenced and challenged her and her contemporaries to find new commitments in life – service to the poor who were deprived of their lives, future and resources by the elites leaders of the country. It was during this time, when after being dormant for nearly a decade, the issue of U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism – the three evils of Philippine society – were again given center stage in the minds of the students thru small group discussions, public ralliesm students demonstrations. Ma.Luisa Posa stood up boldly to help expose these evils before the eyes of the youth and the Ilongos.

Maria Luisa was born August 10, 1955 from a middle class family, the sector with sufficient resources for their economic, social and political life. She was the 5th of the 8 children of a prominent Posa family from Pototan, Iloilo. She lived a sheltered life and studied in elementary and high school at the Colegio de las Hijas de Jesus a catholic school in the town. According to her brother Luis, early in life she was “and introvert, quiet, and was into books and piano lessons and very much a lady”/

But she excelled in her academic classes. In college, she enrolled at the University of San Agustin, in Iloilo City. There, the firebrand in her came out. She got involved in the student’s activists movement. A new political challenge capture her soul and changed forever the directions and commitment of her life. She left school when she was First Year College after President Marcos declared Martial Law.

President Marcos arrested and detained political leaders critical of his government, including senator Benigno Aquino, Jr., Sen. Jovito Salonga, Sen. Gerry Roxas and other prominent politicians, newspapermen, broadcast journalists, labor, some student activist, peasants and religious leaders. They built military stockades in provincial constabulary commands all over the country for those invited, arrested and detained. Maria Luisa Posa was left with no choice but go underground.

During the early years of martial rule, the powerful institutions in the country - Congress, the Supreme Court, the dominant Liberal and Nacionalista parties with the exceptions of a few leaders, the mainstream national churches, the mass media and the powerful business sectors bowed down to the dictator and opted to remain silent. Even the archbishops and bishops danced with the conjugal dictators in Malacanan.

Providing resistance President Marcos dictatorial regime were the student activists and militants, some nationalist priests, pastors, nuns and church leaders, a few politicians, the Communist Party of the Philippines, the New Peoples’ Army, the Moro National Liberation Front and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Ma. Luisa Posa, together with young activists in Iloilo City and Panay dared to resist martial rule. They patiently and bravely organized the people of Panay and Western Visayas to stand up and fight the dictatorship until it was overthrown by the people’s upheaval in 1986.

As the Journalist Bern Mitra of the Daily Guardian newspaper in Iloilo said on independence Day June 12, 1976, Maria Luisa Posa “plunged herself to the cause of stopping martial law’s rape and violence to the Filipinos. She rallied the people of Western Visayas to stand up against Marcos oppression and to reaffirm their humanity. Because of her strong resolve on human rights issues and revolutionary issues, she was subjected to several arrests and detentions.

Ma. Luisa Posa spent 15 years of her life fighting Marcos dictatorship and the Cory Aquino _______. together with the people. She was arrested and imprisoned five times. Her first arrest and detention was in July 1973, nine months after martial law was declared. She was only 17 years old when she was first arrested and detained. But she developed the strength of faith, courage, commitment, determination and resolves to fight the dictatorship and other oppressive regime with all the skills and knowledge at his disposal, mostly with her ideas, training the masses on their basic rights and organizing them for strength and power. .

In 2007 during the coming of congressional elections, Partylists members participated for congressional seats joined the political campaigns. Anak Pawis, Bayan Muna and other Partylist joined campaign. Maria Luisa and her friends joined in the Partylists campaigns. In April 12, 2007, while on their way home from Antique, where they attended the Anak Pawis Partylists consultation, she and her two companions – Nilo Arado, a peasant leader and 7th nominee for the Anak Pawis Partylists and Jose Eli Garachico of human rights group Karapatan, were overtaken by a Van forcing them to stop. Garachico, who was driving the pick-up was immediately shot. Maria Luisa Posa Dominado and Nilo Arado were forcibly abducted. The pick-up they were riding was later found, burned in Brgy. Guadalupe, a hinterland village in Janiuay, Iloilo. Since then, Maria Luisa and Nilo Arado were never heard of again. Garachico who was left for dead in the road by his assailants, survived after some residents helped and brought him to the hospital.

Maria Luisa and Nilo Arado were reported to be the 186 and 187 victims of forced disappearances of militants during President Arroyo’s regime. Nine hundred one (901) people - militants, journalists, priest and pastors, peasants and labor leaders were killed and missing during the 7 years incumbency of President Arroyo. These extra-judicial killngs were condemned by world bodies, including the United Nations, the European Union and churches in the United States and other countries.

In her imprisonments, Maria Luisa said, she suffered unthinkable and inhumane ways of torture by the military. Her frail body almost succumbed to the pains of torture s and humiliations. The hardship in the hills and the harsh living conditions weakened her body. She developed cysts and myoma. She has undergone several breast operations. But her spirit was never broken. To lessen and forget for a while the pains, she meditates and reflects. She wrote letters, verses and poems that spoke the burden of her heart, the lofty dreams of her tomorrows, strengthed and powere her soul.

This undated poem she wrote on the back of a grocery receipts that was shared to me by her daughter May Wan, spoke of her inner strength and commitment to the cause of the revolution and her undying dreams and hopes for her country.

I did not cry when my mother died.
I did not cry when my daughters got sick.
I did not cry when my brother was in jail.
I did not cry when my husband left me for road travellings.
I did not cry when a comrade cannot make it to the meeting.

I did not cry when my daughter makes me
feel I am not a good mother.

But I will cry, when the revolution fails.
When no one continues.

Or maybe I just don’t have to cry.
I just don’t have to die.

I just have to continue to fight.
When, somehow, I feel so alone.

Several times during her seven years imprisonments, Maria Luisa managed to free herself in a creative, amazing and daring manner. During one of her escapes, she dressed herself formally, complete with make-ups, hairdo, high heeled shoes and walked out casually, passing the guards of the military detention center. Another time, when she was detained with her husband, she and 8 fellow prisoners cut a hole in the roof and get out of the detention center, jumped out over the fence and ran for freedom together with her husband, Tomas Dominado, Jr. A Panay wide manhunt was made by the military but they evaded arrests. Her latest arrest was during the time of President Cory Aquino’s “democratic space” who have promised to release all political prisoners.

She tried to test the “democratic space” promised by the President. She was visiting her five years old daughter – May Wan, who was in the care of relatives in Brgy. San Nicolas, Oton, Iloilo when the military arrested her. Several cases were filed against her, but all these were dismissed by the courts of lack of evidences. The case of rebellion against her, she said, were dismissed, since President Corazon Aquino, General Fidel Ramos, Chief of the Constabulary and Juan Ponce Enrile, Secretary of National Defence were themselves rebels against Marcos.

It was during her detention that she married Tomas Legislador Dominado, Jr., also an activist, political prisoner and fighter for freedom and national democracy. Both were detained several years at Camp Delgado detention center. In prison, their love blossomed She was 22 years old when they were married on March 28, 1977 at a Catholic church with military guards surrounding them during the ceremony. After the reception with families and friends, the couple were driven back to the detention camp for their honeymoon. Several months later, they bolted for freedom. Despite the hardship of imprisonment, being on the wanted lists and hunted by the military, Maria Luisa and Tomas remained true to each other.

Their love could have borne them six children. For Ma. Luisa conceived and got pregnant six times. Four times she got miscarriages. The hardship of imprisonment and difficult life of eluding arrests were hard on her. Only two children were born alive. May Wan was born on Labor Day, May 1982 in the mountains of Ibajay, Aklan in the midst of massive military manhunt for them. Their second child, Tamara was born ten years later, in 1992.

May Wan has finished her law degree. While in Manila to start her review for the Bar examination, she learned of her mother’s abduction. She went back to Iloilo City to help mobilize with the “Save Maria Luisa Posa Dominado and Nilo Arado Movement”. She took the bar under that harsh circumstances.

After the dismissal of the cases filed against her, Maria Luisa pursued her college studies. A consistent scholar before she went underground, she enrolled at Central Philippine University, a Baptist university in Iloilo City. She graduated Cum Laude. With her degree and high scholastic ratings, she could have taught in any university or pursued and easier career. But she pursued the path of open, legal, parliamentary struggle, with the conviction that she was doing what is right and what were needed to be done – help fight for the fight for the people’s rights and welfare.

It was during her leadership as spokesperson of SELDA together with “Mothers and Relatives of Tyranny and Repression”(MARTYR), that a dedicated effort to identify, locate and document the victims of Marcos martial law regimes in Panay was made. Some 400 people – young and old, men and women - who were killed, salvaged or missing, all victims of political repressions and military tyranny. Maria Luisa, with other leaders of militant organizations, lobbied hard with the government officials for a space in the heart of Iloilo City to build a monument in remembrance of those who have fallen in the fight for freedom and national democracy. Today, the “Monument to Heroes of Panay in the People’s Struggle” stands at Plaza Libertad. The names of some 400 people who died or missing were written, put inside a sealed bottle and buried in the foundation of the monument, a fitting remembrance for all who have fallen in the continued struggle for freedom, justice and true democracy in the country.

(End of Part 1 of two parts)