In Photo: Bayan Muna national President Satur Ocampo wears a yellow Bayan Muna top during an interview with the BusinessMirror at his residence in Quezon City on December 30, 2013 in celebration of Rizal Day. (Oliver Samson)
AFTER rejoining mainstream society following years of life in the underground and later in jail as a political prisoner, Saturnino Cunanan Ocampo, former spokesman of the National Democratic Front (NDF), chose to push his advocacy in the open over the choice of returning underground to fight in hiding.
At the prime of his life—at 74 years of age—Ocampo said he does not regret the life he tread and is still convinced the four-decade armed conflict will continue as he said Malacañang continues to show no interest in the resumption of the peace process. He expressed hope that President Aquino’s successor will pay attention to the stalled peace talks and decisively start addressing the roots of insurgency. Otherwise, it will just go on.
Even if today’s Left will fail, the future will give birth to individuals who are likely to take up arms as well, as long as social injustice and discrimination, which are more felt by no one else than the grassroots, Ka Satur told the BusinessMirror.
This discrimination became evident to him at an early age, as a school kid. He excelled in his class but a classmate, who is the child of a school principal, usually received the better marks.
At such a young age, Ka Satur was already convinced that the well-to-do is favored in school, community and society as a whole.
Ocampo was raised on a farm in Santa Rita, Pampanga, at a time when his parents were still landless. A tenant-farmer, his father tilled about 8 hectares of land to keep the family up.
He was taught farm work and engaged early in the two-crop-a-year rice production, planting vegetables in between. He recalled earning 25 centavos for each delivery of vendors’ vegetables from farm to market.
After graduating from high school, Ka Satur dreamed of becoming a physician, but his parents’ financial capacity could not afford to send him to medical school. He was admitted, instead, to the Philippine College of Commerce (PCC), now the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), where he attended night school, working in the day. Here, he edited the school paper, the same role he assumed back in high school.
Ka Satur was already an activist when he started editing PCC’s campus paper in 1958. He later became a business writer for a national newspaper while attending school. He did not finish Journalism, though.
In the early 1960s, Ka Satur had networked with the Student Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines (SCAUP), meeting future Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison, UP Professor Emeritus Francisco Nemenzo, former UP College of Mass Communications Dean Luis V. Teodoro and former Supreme Court Chief Justice Reynato Puno, who was the group’s authority when it came to the US bases issue. In 1964 they established Kabataang MaKabayan (KM or Patriotic Youth).
During the time, he was writing for the same newspaper, injecting his politics into his stories. At one point, before martial law, when KM was playing a significant role in mass actions, his editor complained to the paper’s management about a series of articles Ocampo submitted, touching on the organization.
Fortunately, his hands-on publisher Chino Roces, who would later pledge a monthly support to KM, had his stories toned down and published. He clarified he did not violate any ethics in journalism, and writes based on facts, noting that his activities as a KM member should not disqualify him from writing.
Ka Satur was first arrested and jailed for a night after joining the picket at Manila Hotel in 1967, condemning the Vietnam War during a summit of heads of states who were called by US President Lyndon Johnson. The following day, for the first time in his life, he saw his own photo in the newspaper where he wrote for as well as in other periodicals.
When the writ of habeas corpus was suspended in August 1971, Ka Satur went underground, following the arrest of KM leaders. He resigned from the newspaper as a regular staff, but retained connection as a correspondent up to the time Marcos shut it down.
When martial law was declared, he went deeper underground, he said. It led his group to establish the NDF. On January 14, 1976, he was arrested and jailed for nine years, seven years at Camp Bagong Diwa in Taguig City.
While on pass, issued by then-Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile, he escaped from his escorts to the National Press Club (NPC) national convention where he was invited in May 1985 after the press regained relative freedom.
Following the fall of Marcos, President Corazon Aquino called for peace talks, with Ka Satur as chief negotiator for the NDF. But when peace negotiations collapsed due to the Mendiola Massacre on January 22, 1987, killing 13 farmers, he went back underground.
The peace negotiation was sabotaged by one of Aquino’s Cabinet secretaries and a military general, Ka Satur said.
He was re-arrested together with his wife, Carolina Malay, in 1989. Three years later, a year after his wife was released, he was freed. Neither was found guilty of any crime.
In 2001 he was elected to Congress where he served for nine straight years as Bayan Muna (BM) party-list representative. BM is a political group repre4senting the marginalized sectors of Philippine society. During the 14th Congress, he authored Republic Act (RA) 9745 or the Anti-Torture Act of 2009. It was signed by former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2009, 23 years after the government ratified the Convention Against Torture.
Ka Satur also authored RA 10350, or the Anti-Enforced Disappearances Act of 2012, signed by President Aquino in December of the same year. He also authored and fought for the anti-political-dynasty bill for nine years, which until now remains a bill. He is also the original author of the Freedom of Information bill that still has to gain the support of both chambers.
Since 2001, after his election to Congress, he has been pushing to abolish pork barrel. When the Napoles scam erupted, MaKabayang Koalisyon ng Mamamayan (MaKabayan) party-list representatives filled a bill calling to do away with it. After his unsuccessful bid for a Senate seat in 2010, he joined the efforts of MaKabayan to monitor and back its party-list representatives’ legislative agenda.
Ka Satur currently heads BM and the MaKabayan, a gathering of several party-list organizations, and pushes his human-rights advocacy with Karapatan, a militant group established to protect and advance human rights.
Ka Satur is currently pushing the government to immediately form the compensation board and assume its role as required by RA 10368, or the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013, signed by President Aquino on February 25, 2013.
RA 10368 will award P10 billion as indemnification to about 10,000 human-rights victims.
Peace talks should resume on fundamental issues at the national level, which include reforms on economic policies and the Constitution, Ka Satur said. The issues NDF pushes in the peace negotiations are the roots of insurgency. While peace talks are suspended, armed conflict may continue, he said.
http://businessmirror.com.ph/index.php/en/lifestyle/elderly/25408-ka-satur-of-bayan-muna-remains-champion-of-the-cause-of-to-poor
As can be seen in his biography above, Satur Ocampo is a long time CPP member/activist. He currently heads up the main CPP-associated party-list political party Bayan Muna (People First) as well as the Makabayan coalition of CPP-linked political parties.
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