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 highways. 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 Itinerant photographers 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 homes inside the area. There was a small passage where residents passed, made of 4 pieces of bamboos that were lined side by side and tied together. The "bamboo bridge " was about 1 kilometer long. It was in a slum in San Andres Bukid, near Singalong in Malate.
I wrote letters to several colleges and universities in Manila. I asked permission to enroll as a working student. I requested enroll with my Educational Benefits from, but to work 2 hours daily to pay for my food accomodation and other school needs. I sent my letters to San Beda College, UP-Deliman, San Juan de Litran. After a week, I received replies. They do not accept working students. I enrolled at Lyceum of the Philippines, Intramuros, Manila.
I planned to enroll that June. To earn my daily needs, I joined my friends to work as itinerant photographers in Manila. There were 3 areas where we found good photography 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 bathe their children. During that time, Dewey Boulevard has still clean seashores. And many children stroll in the afternoons until nights.
On Sunday afternoons, I’m at Luneta Park. Here photography business were brisk. Local 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, their 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 in-charge 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 Veterans Administration.
Sunday mornings, we were at Lyceum Quadrangle or at Camp Crame, where we have ROTC training. 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 which includes include Pasay City, Quezon City, Manila, Caloocan and other nearby towns.
Often, on Saturday evenings, I joined a friend, a photographer of Reyes Studio in Manila, covering affairs like birthdays, wedding receptions, 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 we have no business, most often during rainy days.
One Saturday morning at Dewey Boulevard, I met two young girls in white uniforms, with two children, strolling at Dewey Boulevard. They were trying to breath fresh airs from the sea. I went to them and invited them to take their pictures. I showed them my sample pictures. These were black and whites. No colored pictures yet during that time.
The two girls looked at my sample pictures. It was pictures of 3 beautiful girls I took in Baguio City. These were my sample pictures. The girls agreed that I will take their photos. I took about 12 shots.Then, I asked for their address, telephone numbers and how to reach their place. They wrote this on my Address Book.
I do not take down payments for taking pictures. I said, they will just pay when I delivered their pictures in their home. That was my way to establish trust. Most photographers took down payment, 50% when they took pictures. There I learned the two girls were living at Forbes Park in Makati. This was an exclusive village for millionaires.
Only the richest families lived in Forbes Park. It’s the billionaires village of Metro Manila. That was the first time, I was to deliver pictures in that most well- known village of Makati.
Few days later, I took a bus to Forbes Park. The atmosphere around the billionaires village can be seen and felt. The surroundings was fenced with tall hollow blocks. The gate of the village was strong, formidable. There were uniformed Security Guards around. 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 in Forbes Park.
I walked to the gate where several security guards were standing near the Guard House. I politely told the guard. I am a photographer. I will deliver pictures to the family on the address. I showed them 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 before 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 their pictures..
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, how 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 beautiful woman told the girls to give me snacks. She was a foreigner. Very beautiful and also friendly. She has the bearings of a beauty queen. She told me she was leaving. She asked me to take pictures of the girls and her children at home.
While I was having my snack, I asked the girls who their lady boss is. They told me, she was Armi Kusela Hilario. She was a former Miss Universe. I gasped. I have met a Miss Universe. The most beautiful woman in the world that time. . If I only knew, I could have shaked or kissed 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 look for a stool to stand. Armi Kusela was a tool woman. I am glad that I have a chance to look at close range and talked for a few minutes with a former Miss Universe.
I learned later, Armi Kusela was from Norway and was crowned Miss Universe, the most beautiful woman of the world. She married Virgilio Hilario, a Filipino businessman and resided here at Forbes Park.
I continued my studies at Lyceum of the Philippines. It was my 3rd 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 of Trustees.
When I was at Lyceum, one of his sons, Congressman Jose B. Laurel, was the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Dr. Sotero Laurel was Lyceum president. He later ran and won as Congressman in the 4th District of Manila. We helped in his campaign.
My tuition and fees at Lyceum was paid by the Philippine Veterans Administration (PVA). I was given scholarship by the government. 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, I waived to her, 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. Some were children of politicians.
Many were taking courses in - law, business administration, journalism, foreign service, public administration, and diplomacy.
Except for law, most of the courses I mentioned, were not offered in Iloilo City during that time. Many of my classmates, took business administration, foreign service, journalism, public administration and became leaders in business and government. Some joined the foreign service, some entered politics, some worked with national newspapers or started and joined newspapers in their provinces.
In Manila, during my 3rd and 4th years, 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). In 1965, I became a member of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), with Jose Sison as President. At the Lyceum, where he taught, we often stood at Plaza Lawton, discussion things and issue that interest us. I visited there home, with his wife, where he allow me to read books that were new to me. When I was with Agence France Presse (AFP) Joe Sison came often to visit me with his story for international release. 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 Guerrero.
By the middle of 1966, the students’ movement, together with the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), which was founded in 1965, started to become the strongest student movement in Manila, mobilizing rallies in Congress, the US Embassy and Malacanan, demanding end to feudalism, US imperialism and bureaucratic capitalism, the three evils of Philippine society.
The shout of the demonstrators, “Down with US Imperialism” reverberated in the corridors of Manila for years.
It was during this time that the opposition to US war in Vietnam reached a high crescendo in the later part of President Diosdado 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, during rallies 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, who was an Ilonggo, went back to Iloilo and helped organized Kabataang Makabayan (KM) in Panay. He also helped organized “Masang Prop” an organization of professionals in the struggle for social transformation. Alberto Espinas, was leader 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..
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, where I also joined, asked President Macapagal not to send Filipino soldiers to Vietnam. For President Macapagal was considering to send Filipino soldiers to Vietnam. On the other hand, Senator Ferdinand Marcos, said, he will not send Filipino soldiers to Vietnam.
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 of United States to defeat communism in Vietnam. But the US failed. The United States, using all their skills and powerful war equipment, 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 shaking 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. Many of my classmates continued in advance studies. Some joined the Communist Party and the New People’s Army and went underground. They said, they will help lay the ground works for building a just society under a national democratic government thru a people’s revolution.
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