Silhouettes of fishermen going out to sea dissolved in the darkened Batangas Bay as our 20-feet or so wooden-hulled boat gunned the engine towards where the sun disappeared. The five New People’s Army fighters and I huddled against the cold breeze that night in May 1972 as we skirted the coastline of Cavite, then steered away so as not to be noticed by the basnigs, the brightly lighted heavy fishing boats off Bataan.
When I agreed to guide the boat to Isabela, on the Pacific coast of Luzon Island, to deliver rice and field supplies, I said could bring the boat from one point to another as I could get my bearings from landforms as reference points.
We took turns on the helm, but we were so focused on maintaining our direction that we failed to check our actual surroundings. As we swung along the coast of Zambales, our hull struck a rock and we began to take in water. Fortunately we had a manual pump in the boat, and we took turns at it until we reached an isolated beach in Aparri, where we were able to take a look at the damage. Indeed there was a gash that two lengths of my palm could not cover. So we went on our way, taking turns at the pump.
After rounding Port Irene on the northeast nose of Luzon we hoisted the sail as there was a tailwind that made us skim the water faster. We did not encounter any coast guard patrol as we came abreast of Divilacan Point on the coast of Isabela for a rendezvous with the NPA. However the coastal water was strewn with rocks so we went back a few miles and met them at the mouth of Digoyo River. Hardy faces beamed in welcome as we came ashore to handshakes and back slaps for a mission well done. Lieutenant Victor Corpus, the Philippine Military Academy officer who defected to the NPA upon his graduation, feted us on a hearty meal of boiled fresh-water fish and river shrimps and rice on a long banana frond. Not long afterwards, a steel hulled fishing boat, the MV Karagatan, anchored very near the coast and unloaded more supplies.
We were about to bade goodbye to the crew of the boat when I was handed a letter on a small strip of paper from Joma Sison, the Communist Party Chair, who gave me the task to help navigate the MV Karagatan across the South China Sea to fetch supplies and weapons and bring them back. He was impressed that I could sail by the stars, something called celestial navigation. What he did not realize was that stars, for me, were only for viewing, not for seeking guidance.
But you’ll never appreciate how vast the sky, yet it is almost filled with stars, until you see them light the endless sea. We landed at our destination and received our load of supplies, firearms and ammunition for the band of Lt. Corpus in the Sierra Madre. We laid at anchor for two days to let a storm pass before setting off on an easterly bearing toward Luzon. Midway, we sprang a leak perhaps because we were fully laden, but there was no question of turning back as we were in the middle of our journey. One of the crew members found the source of the leak and remedied the problem, so we were able to proceed with an easier mindframe.
We were on our rendezvous deep in the night. There was no response to our signals to the shore. As morning broke on July 4, 1972, I and a couple of comrades lowered a dinghy, took a box of rifles while each of us carried one then rowed to shore. It was then when the NPA emerged from the thick foliage on the shore, as one of the men shouted my name, recognizing me as our boat approached because of my long hair that covered my ears. There was much shouting in jubilation and hugging. But only for a while. Our merchandise was a real heavy shipment. How do we unload it in the quickest time?
We started unloading our cargo by transferring them to bancas. It was a tedious process and at one point some cargo fell into the water. Then, from out of nowhere, a small plane appeared, passed and then circled over us. I thought that we had been spotted by the military. So I decided to sail the boat right up to the mouth of Digoyo River where comrades were able to reach up to get our cargo. We finished unloading just before sunset. As we huddled for farewells, a PAF jet plane buzzed the treetops. We hurried to get out of the place. I told the co-captain that we should not turn on the engine because the propeller might hit a rock. We could just let the ebbing tide current take us out of the river. But the co-captain was impatient, and true enough, we hit a rock which damaged the hydraulic system and we could only move in circles.
Eventually we were able to maneuver offshore and the engine guy was able to identify the trouble. He said he needed a little time to do some welding. In the meantime, the captain turned on the radar and saw something moving towards us. That something kept getting closer, but we could not see anything. It was not using any light.
The captain ordered us to abandon ship. There was a scramble for life vests and the crew and everybody started jumping overboard. I could not find a life vest, but there was a guy in the water who was shouting for help because he did not know how to swim. I jumped into the water and came up to him. I told him to relax and let me share his life vest and I will bring us to the beach.
As we made our way to the beach, the people in the unidentified vessel came up to our ship, switched on searchlights and started asking who we were through a megaphone. What are doing here? Come out! But we had already reached the beach where Corpus’ men had positioned themselves behind trees and rocks to take action. Farther into the forest, we had a quick supper and then we found some comfortable spots for a night’s rest.
The following day, I asked Lt. Corpus to let us go on our journey back to Manila since our part of the mission had been accomplished. The ship’s captain, a Dumagat native, a veteran of the Hukbalahap rebellion and I hit a faint forest trail in the late afternoon. An hour into our trek, we heard a barrage of rifle fire. A few families of Dumagats came scampering hither and thither for it seemed there was a battle going on.
We plodded on, sleeping where darkness would overtake us, and moving on the next day. One time, we slept under a tree while it was raining, and we got drenched anyway. Our Dumagat guide was really savvy, and one time he said that a wild boar just passed by and asked us to wait. In a short while he was back with a wild boar which he shot with one of the new rifles we had brought across the sea. we had consumed our two weeks supply of rice just on the sixth day, because we shared it with Dumagats whom we met along the way. We survived thereafter on a meal of boiled monkey, which our guide shot, and fish from the river. We finally crossed the Sierra Madre and came upon comrades who were setting up relay camps along a river for the couriers of our arms shipment.
We spent the night at the base camp in the forest of Isabela where temporary quarters for around 25 persons had been set up. We set out the next afternoon with a plan to be joined by armed escorts farther down the hills. When we reached a barrio, we were told that our supposed escort had left because there were some troop movements in the area. We were advised to cross the river and hide in a hut atop a hill overlooking the barrio. We had a peaceful night.
In the morning while waiting for our breakfast to be brought to us, our female companions pointed to a couple of jet planes at a distance. Our experienced Huk veteran shouted for everybody to hide behind some huge rocks nearby. Within seconds, the planes circled overhead and strafed the hut with machine gun fire and rockets. The hut did not even suffer a direct hit. When the planes had left, we fled to the forest, and crossed the river about a kilometer away, where we heard troops firing as they crossed the river from the barrio to get to the hut where we stayed overnight.
We rested at a farm plot but then heard firing nearby so we went inside the forest again. A barrio lad who was passing by told us that the soldiers have occupied their barrio and were just firing in the air to scare people. We stayed beside a creek for two days. Planes were bombing possible NPA camp sites in the forest and it seemed there was a small war going on. On the third day, we were told that the barrio folk were advised to evacuate as the PAF was going to bomb the area. True enough; the barrio was completely deserted when we came in the late afternoon. We passed the night in a small creek choked with wild bananas called saging ng matsing. They bore small fruits with pepper-sized seeds so that you can hardly eat the flesh, but they were sweet. And they were supper for the night.
We moved only during the evening on the following day and found some comrades with the barrio folk in a field. We were given biscuits and soon we entered a barrio that seemed safe.
We spent the weeks sneaking from one barrio to another, inching towards the flatlands. We always traveled by night and no one talked and no lights were allowed along the way. At one point, we had to cross a field of makahiya, and being barefoot, it really hurt and our soles were all bloodied. There were even trees and bushes with long claw-like thorns that tear into your skin when you brush against them.
Finally after a few weeks of dodging the army, trekking from one barrio or camp to another, we reached an NPA camp near the national highway in Tumauini, Isabela. We were given a change of clothes, waited for a bus in a safe house along the highway. The bus we rode on carried some wounded army soldiers.
The rains had been going on the whole of July and August in 1972. In Nueva Viscaya, we joined a train of vehicles that couldn’t move because of landslides triggered by the unrelenting rains. A child with the mother waiting for the traffic to ease died because they had been there for a couple of days with nothing to eat and the villagers nearby were charging a lot for the food they were selling. Trucks laden with bananas began to smell as the over-ripened bananas began to ferment. We walked over five kilometers down the mountain road to get to the other end of the traffic. And then we finally reached Metro Manila.
President Marcos thought that the NPA, now equipped with new weapons, posed a serious challenge to the government. Partly on account of this, he decided to declare martial law in September.
The weapons we delivered was only the first batch. There was another batch or two to be picked up.
Silhouettes of fishermen going out to sea dissolved in the darkened Batangas Bay as our 20-feet or so wooden-hulled boat gunned the engine towards where the sun disappeared. The five New People’s Army fighters and I huddled against the cold breeze that night in May 1972 as we skirted the coastline of Cavite, then steered away so as not to be noticed by the basnigs, the brightly lighted heavy fishing boats off Bataan.