LONG WAY. While still in the rebel movement, Eduardo (not his real name) would cross vast rice fields during their operations to veer away from open spaces where Philippine Army scouts might spot them. Now, Eduardo is free to be out in the open, not afraid anymore, as he looks for ways to gain livelihood so he could soon support his own family. (rahc/PIA-7/Bohol)
Only able to finish fifth grade in the elementary, Eduardo (not his real name) sought ways to get back to school.
He knows that without education, it would be extremely hard for him to rise up from poverty’s death grip. Even at 20 years old, he still longed to go back to school. His dream of pursuing his studies and a land and a house that he can call his own got him to complicate his otherwise simple life.
A man born to and hardened by the tough realities of poverty and the rigors of trying to help his parents make both ends meet and feed their family of seven, Eduardo still thinks education will be his ticket to a better life.While school then was just nearby, seeing his siblings work and scour for food for the family table was enough for him to temporarily keep school out of his mind.
Born from farmer parents who only had two small rice paddies to work on as the only reliable supply of food for the entire year, the young Eduardo tried to master working on a field so he could help out as extra hand for other farmers. This he did while envying students he would see in their school uniforms crossing the paddies to the nearby school. “If only we have a good piece of land,” he muses audibly as he fixed his face mask which he wore in view of the threat of the novel corona virus. “As young as 15, I could already farm, but there were also many of us in the village who could do that. If only we had a bigger land to farm, our lives would have improved by then.”
Living in a barangay in the town of Garcia Hernandez in Bohol which has a good irrigation system and a neat agricultural extension support, Eduardo and his brothers have all the help they need.
Except they lack the track of land to till.
In their hours at the farm, some members of Anakpawis would come to talk to them about their lot. “They are very convincing, and their issues touched us to the core,” he shares as he was slowly hooked into the snare of the underground movement. “There were meetings, we listened as speakers talked about social justice, about our deplorable situation and it ignited the spark of idealism that I had as a young man then,” he recalled.
“First, we were asked to join a mass movement in the city. Then there was another movement and another,” he narrated, drawing a painful memory he has buried among his past.
As simple as that, Eduardo, along with a few more young men in his village, bravely marched in the city, protesting, chanting motherhood statements that made them regular fixtures in rallies here. “And then, they said we have to be very careful as we have been documented attending rallies. They said soldiers would get to our houses, arrest us and torture our families,” he says, adding that their organizers would tell stories how military treats rebels then.
For Eduardo and some of the young men in the village, the call of the hills was so strong. So they fled to the mountains. “I was told that with them, I can go to school, get a piece of land and a house, which was already the best dream that I had.”
That promise also was the same promise they offered to all the young men that the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, National Democratic Front (CPP-NDF), recruited to join the band of armed men. “First, I was just helping them cook, fetching water and doing odd jobs,” says Eduardo.
A week later, Eduardo, among the youngest at 20 years old, held his first weapon, a .38 caliber pistol. His life as an armed insurgent started.
A few more days after, he was handed an M16 rifle. “I waited to be told to go back to school. It did not come. Instead, I was put into a platoon doing rounds in the mountains. It was scary. It’s good I am still alive,” he said.
Rebels, often clad in black sweatshirts toting supply bags with some spare provisions and a rifle, still sow unmistakable fear as they go to their barangay mass base. “Once, we were 10, all armed and holed in a small hut near a road. Another 10 stayed at the next house, and still another 10 at the house next to it. Then, there was an army patrol team, that stopped at the yard, exchanging banter with the host: an old lady. We were all locked and loaded, all that was needed was for one to get on the trigger and hell would break loose,” said Eduardo. “One simple act of aggression we see and I am sure many would die there. We were lucky nobody acted wrong.”
After a year of living in the hills, Eduardo thought he was just lucky and it would not be true at all times. Operation after operation, Eduardo has to struggle to be tough to survive in the mountains, not really getting the fun from life’s simple joys like taking a bath because he and his buddy has to be alert all the time.
This, he mused, was not what he dreamt of when he joined the group.
Seeing a chance to escape, he left his weapons with the group and asked to take a short leave from the mountain lair to go to his parents during their town fiesta. That same day, he escaped to his brother in Cagayan de Oro and then to Misamis Oriental, if only to get away from the rebels and the military intelligence operatives who were always on his heels. “I was helping tend a store in Cogon market, when a familiar face came up and asked how much for a grated coconut was. I knew I saw that face before. I panicked. I found a good excuse and fled off to Misamis again,” he said.
Months passed and he realized he could not hide any longer. He returned to his home in Garcia Hernandez, always afraid that he could be arrested or killed. “I could not sleep well. I would be always ready to jump and flee every time I sense danger,” Eduardo confesses.
Seeing that life in the lowlands, no matter how hard, was a life more pleasant than in the hills, Eduardo slowly learned things school may not immediately teach. By 2019, Eduardo finally surrendered to the Philippine Army authorities and begged to be kept safe from the rebels who may look for him.
With the government now, he heard assurances from authorities of a better life for rebel returnees. But opting to be free from the communist bond has for Eduardo, some takebacks. Living far away from the rebels and his family, he was left now without a source of livelihood. He would have to find a way to survive and be productive.
Then came the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Central Visayas which offered him its livelihood assistance program. DSWD pooled some P1.6 million in financial and livelihood aid to rebel returnees, according to Bohol DSWD authorities.
Eduardo was among the 25 former rebels in Central Visayas who heeded the call to end local communist armed conflicts and enrolled into the program. The government has promised a package of social integration packages through DSWD for former rebels.
Getting P6,000 from the government, Eduardo, who opted to stay away from his home town, started a pig fattening business, one that allows him a meager income for his personal supplies. While in the halfway house, he also joined over a hundred former rebels, soldiers and townfolks getting free training from the government’s technical training institute.
“To make our chances of getting more reliable livelihood, 25 of us joined Masonry and Carpentry training offered by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority,” he says, illustrating his newfound hope. “Wives of other rebel returnees also trained in cooking and bread and pastry, to get new skills and maybe use them to live permanently on hard work,” he added.
A few months later, with the government’s enhanced comprehensive local integration program (E-CLIP), Eduardo has seen a much better future. “Having qualified in the program, rebel returnees get safety and security guarantees, gest relocation support and an immediate financial assistance of P15,000 for mobilization while applying for the ECLIP,” according to 1Lieut Elma Grace Remonde, Civil Military Operations Officer and one of Eduardo’s military caretakers in Bohol.
While in the interim and while he was staying in a halfway house while applying for the program, the returnee also has P7,000 in reintegration assistance given to the unit which takes care of the applicant while in the safe house. “I gave a little bit of money to my parents, they are sick and I am now helping them buy medicines,” he shares as he pick up a broom to clean the pigpen where three piglets form part of his livelihood from the government’s livelihood assistance package.
In between these tasks, he also takes care of a nearby duck pen, one which has some month-old ducklings, a hatchling corral, and some layers. “I like it here, much more than surviving on the fear of people,” he says.
How does the future look now for Eduardo?
“Slowly but surely, I’ll gain skills for a decent working man, find a job that can feed a wife and kids, help my family and the government,” he bares.
Looking out to a wide expanse of rice fields in a place far from home, Eduardo does not have to be wary now. When he used to take long alternative routes that cross a rice field where he is exposed to some military scouts looking for them, now he can only wish he could strike a deal with landowners for him to till a patch, and usher in him the resolve to finally bask in the warmth of democracy.
He may have missed basic school, but the 38-year old kanhi rebelde or former rebel is now kauban sa reporma or partner for progress, looking out for ways to be useful in a society that is now more than resolved to end a war where the poor are always the victims. (rahc/PIA7 Bohol)
https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1033459
He knows that without education, it would be extremely hard for him to rise up from poverty’s death grip. Even at 20 years old, he still longed to go back to school. His dream of pursuing his studies and a land and a house that he can call his own got him to complicate his otherwise simple life.
A man born to and hardened by the tough realities of poverty and the rigors of trying to help his parents make both ends meet and feed their family of seven, Eduardo still thinks education will be his ticket to a better life.While school then was just nearby, seeing his siblings work and scour for food for the family table was enough for him to temporarily keep school out of his mind.
Born from farmer parents who only had two small rice paddies to work on as the only reliable supply of food for the entire year, the young Eduardo tried to master working on a field so he could help out as extra hand for other farmers. This he did while envying students he would see in their school uniforms crossing the paddies to the nearby school. “If only we have a good piece of land,” he muses audibly as he fixed his face mask which he wore in view of the threat of the novel corona virus. “As young as 15, I could already farm, but there were also many of us in the village who could do that. If only we had a bigger land to farm, our lives would have improved by then.”
Living in a barangay in the town of Garcia Hernandez in Bohol which has a good irrigation system and a neat agricultural extension support, Eduardo and his brothers have all the help they need.
Except they lack the track of land to till.
In their hours at the farm, some members of Anakpawis would come to talk to them about their lot. “They are very convincing, and their issues touched us to the core,” he shares as he was slowly hooked into the snare of the underground movement. “There were meetings, we listened as speakers talked about social justice, about our deplorable situation and it ignited the spark of idealism that I had as a young man then,” he recalled.
“First, we were asked to join a mass movement in the city. Then there was another movement and another,” he narrated, drawing a painful memory he has buried among his past.
As simple as that, Eduardo, along with a few more young men in his village, bravely marched in the city, protesting, chanting motherhood statements that made them regular fixtures in rallies here. “And then, they said we have to be very careful as we have been documented attending rallies. They said soldiers would get to our houses, arrest us and torture our families,” he says, adding that their organizers would tell stories how military treats rebels then.
For Eduardo and some of the young men in the village, the call of the hills was so strong. So they fled to the mountains. “I was told that with them, I can go to school, get a piece of land and a house, which was already the best dream that I had.”
That promise also was the same promise they offered to all the young men that the New People’s Army, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines, National Democratic Front (CPP-NDF), recruited to join the band of armed men. “First, I was just helping them cook, fetching water and doing odd jobs,” says Eduardo.
A week later, Eduardo, among the youngest at 20 years old, held his first weapon, a .38 caliber pistol. His life as an armed insurgent started.
A few more days after, he was handed an M16 rifle. “I waited to be told to go back to school. It did not come. Instead, I was put into a platoon doing rounds in the mountains. It was scary. It’s good I am still alive,” he said.
Rebels, often clad in black sweatshirts toting supply bags with some spare provisions and a rifle, still sow unmistakable fear as they go to their barangay mass base. “Once, we were 10, all armed and holed in a small hut near a road. Another 10 stayed at the next house, and still another 10 at the house next to it. Then, there was an army patrol team, that stopped at the yard, exchanging banter with the host: an old lady. We were all locked and loaded, all that was needed was for one to get on the trigger and hell would break loose,” said Eduardo. “One simple act of aggression we see and I am sure many would die there. We were lucky nobody acted wrong.”
After a year of living in the hills, Eduardo thought he was just lucky and it would not be true at all times. Operation after operation, Eduardo has to struggle to be tough to survive in the mountains, not really getting the fun from life’s simple joys like taking a bath because he and his buddy has to be alert all the time.
This, he mused, was not what he dreamt of when he joined the group.
Seeing a chance to escape, he left his weapons with the group and asked to take a short leave from the mountain lair to go to his parents during their town fiesta. That same day, he escaped to his brother in Cagayan de Oro and then to Misamis Oriental, if only to get away from the rebels and the military intelligence operatives who were always on his heels. “I was helping tend a store in Cogon market, when a familiar face came up and asked how much for a grated coconut was. I knew I saw that face before. I panicked. I found a good excuse and fled off to Misamis again,” he said.
Months passed and he realized he could not hide any longer. He returned to his home in Garcia Hernandez, always afraid that he could be arrested or killed. “I could not sleep well. I would be always ready to jump and flee every time I sense danger,” Eduardo confesses.
Seeing that life in the lowlands, no matter how hard, was a life more pleasant than in the hills, Eduardo slowly learned things school may not immediately teach. By 2019, Eduardo finally surrendered to the Philippine Army authorities and begged to be kept safe from the rebels who may look for him.
With the government now, he heard assurances from authorities of a better life for rebel returnees. But opting to be free from the communist bond has for Eduardo, some takebacks. Living far away from the rebels and his family, he was left now without a source of livelihood. He would have to find a way to survive and be productive.
Then came the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in Central Visayas which offered him its livelihood assistance program. DSWD pooled some P1.6 million in financial and livelihood aid to rebel returnees, according to Bohol DSWD authorities.
Eduardo was among the 25 former rebels in Central Visayas who heeded the call to end local communist armed conflicts and enrolled into the program. The government has promised a package of social integration packages through DSWD for former rebels.
Getting P6,000 from the government, Eduardo, who opted to stay away from his home town, started a pig fattening business, one that allows him a meager income for his personal supplies. While in the halfway house, he also joined over a hundred former rebels, soldiers and townfolks getting free training from the government’s technical training institute.
“To make our chances of getting more reliable livelihood, 25 of us joined Masonry and Carpentry training offered by the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority,” he says, illustrating his newfound hope. “Wives of other rebel returnees also trained in cooking and bread and pastry, to get new skills and maybe use them to live permanently on hard work,” he added.
A few months later, with the government’s enhanced comprehensive local integration program (E-CLIP), Eduardo has seen a much better future. “Having qualified in the program, rebel returnees get safety and security guarantees, gest relocation support and an immediate financial assistance of P15,000 for mobilization while applying for the ECLIP,” according to 1Lieut Elma Grace Remonde, Civil Military Operations Officer and one of Eduardo’s military caretakers in Bohol.
While in the interim and while he was staying in a halfway house while applying for the program, the returnee also has P7,000 in reintegration assistance given to the unit which takes care of the applicant while in the safe house. “I gave a little bit of money to my parents, they are sick and I am now helping them buy medicines,” he shares as he pick up a broom to clean the pigpen where three piglets form part of his livelihood from the government’s livelihood assistance package.
In between these tasks, he also takes care of a nearby duck pen, one which has some month-old ducklings, a hatchling corral, and some layers. “I like it here, much more than surviving on the fear of people,” he says.
How does the future look now for Eduardo?
“Slowly but surely, I’ll gain skills for a decent working man, find a job that can feed a wife and kids, help my family and the government,” he bares.
Looking out to a wide expanse of rice fields in a place far from home, Eduardo does not have to be wary now. When he used to take long alternative routes that cross a rice field where he is exposed to some military scouts looking for them, now he can only wish he could strike a deal with landowners for him to till a patch, and usher in him the resolve to finally bask in the warmth of democracy.
He may have missed basic school, but the 38-year old kanhi rebelde or former rebel is now kauban sa reporma or partner for progress, looking out for ways to be useful in a society that is now more than resolved to end a war where the poor are always the victims. (rahc/PIA7 Bohol)
https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1033459
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