Achieving Happiness

Last Tuesday I was a guest on Manolo Quezon’s program ‘The Explainer’ on ANC. The topic was how the progressive party-lists are being accused of being fronts of the New People’s Army and the Communist Party of the Philippines, and what the impact was on the PPLs and their mass membership and leaders.
I am grateful to MLQ3 for being fair and objective in his explanations and his conclusion at the end of the program. He expressed disagreement with the means and methods the Macapagal-Arroyo government is utilizing to convince the Filipino people that communism was wrong. If the government wants to fight the CPP-NPA-NDF, he said, it should do so not by violating the human rights of members and sympathizers of the progressive party-lists, but by initiating genuine reform in the Armed Forces of the Philippines; by implementing genuine economic programs that will benefit the poor; and by serving as a good example of pro-people governance. That’s the only way to convince the Filipino people that there is no need for armed struggle.
I would like to reiterate my apologies to Patricia Evangelista if she thought that I was offended when she donned a ‘Mao cap’ during the opening segment of the show. I think she caught me wincing; I winced not because I was offended by her or the cap, but because, well, naisip ko lang na sa panahon ngayon, especially in the provinces, wearing the iconic green cap with the red star could get you into trouble, the military might well literally blow your head off.
Ms. Pat, feel free to wear the cap, just be careful though. You might end up being tagged as a terrorist. The HSA has been passed and we have a highly paranoid government. I own a ‘Mao cap’ myself, but I never wear it.
Like so many others, I am grateful that Ms. Evangelista has now chosen to write about issues and causes that impact on the lives of the poor and marginalized sectors; that she now writes about human rights and the worsening political situation in the country in a way that is deeply sympathetic with the victims of such a situation.
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This is an excerpt from a project I’m doing:

Crispin did not regret joining the union or the strike; but
inside him, there was a niggling regret for the P8-P10 a day he lost for every
day that he was part of the strike. He did not once think of being a scab, but
privately he bemoaned the lost income. It was to be expected, this small
regret: for the first time in his entire life, he had money that amounted more
than P4 every day. His wallet was heavier with more than just coins; he was
able to send money home to Tanagan more regularly, and he could afford to drink
beer and not just the slightly weak coffee they served at the karinderia after work
hours.

On the
morning the strike was launched, Crispin parked his taxi in the garage, and
took on the task the union leadership assigned him: kitchen crew.

It was a
job Crispin was only too glad to accept. He was very much a greenhorn to
unionism, he was there primarily on instinct, his belief in standing in
solidarity with those he worked with, uniting with people with whom he shared
similar experiences and even educational and family background. Being assigned
kitchen duty allowed him to work around familiar territory, and it gave him a
chance to meet and get to know the other taxi drivers.

He took
charge of the picketline’s makeshift kitchen, chopping the vegetables, stewing the fish, boiling water and
cooking rice. He also had the initiative to be the food server, announcing when
the food was ready, and dishing it out as his fellow strikers formed a long
line, their plates and spoons in hand.

For the
first five days of the strike, negotiations between the union and the Yellow
Taxi Company management were full-blown and heated. It was revealed that when
Yellow Taxi bought out the old cabs of the defunct Malate Taxi Company, it also
absorbed the former company’s taxi drivers. There were many unresolved
issues between the drivers and Malate, but none of these were settled; when
Yellow Taxi took over, it also inherited the labor problems. Like the
management of Malate Taxi Company, the management of Yellow Taxi did not take enthusiastically to the idea of improving the economic welfare of the drivers.

Primary
among the demands of the Yellow Taxi Drivers Union was to raise the share of
the driver in the fares he collected during his shift. From a 25%-75% division
in favor of the company, the union wanted a 30%-70% division.

The union
also wanted the company to stop automatic deduction from the workers’ salaries.
Whenever a driver was unfortunate to have met an accident on the road, the
repair costs for the damages sustained by the vehicle was shouldered by the
driver and taken out of his wages, regardless of whether the accident was his
fault or not.

  As far as Crispin knew, the management was not
budging from its position and refused to give an inch to the union’s demands.
There was nothing the management could do about the paralysis in the company
operations: a majority of the 2,500 taxi drivers had joined the strike, and
those who did not join the strike and stayed at the picketline opted to stay at
home.

The sixth
day of the strike arrived. The sun rose bright and early at the picketline. The
residents of the apartment right next door to the taxi garage were preparing
for work; and the strikers were preparing for another day of resistance.

Crispin,
being used to waking up even earlier than most chickens and roosters, had
already heated water for coffee, cooked rice, and had begun the viand. He
cooked the ulam in a large talyasi, or a heavy iron concave cauldron, also
called a kawa.

It looked
as if it would be just another day at the picketline, with the strikers
engaging in one-upmanship as they traded stories about their taxi driving
experiences: how they fought off men who tried to rob their taxis; who had the
oddest passengers and where they could be picked up; the best way to beat a red
light; the alternative roads and alleys
to avoid traffic; how to distract passengers from noticing that the taxi meter
is moving way too fast.

Most of the
morning was spent with the strikers doing their respective tasks in the
picketline. Some were on market duty and went to replenish staple supplies like
rice, coffee and sugar. Others cleaned the picketline area, picking up stray
trash, cleaning the pavement where the
strikers slept on flattened carton boxes and plastic rice sacks.

The
afternoon was also a lazy affair. Maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the
sleepiness that came after eating a good meal, but none of them noticed that
strange men had already entered the company compound.

There were
policemen guarding the picketline, and it was their supposed duty to make sure
that nothing untoward happened in the picketline area and the immediate
vicinity of the strike. The police were also supposed to be neutral: they were
not there to monitor the strikers themselves, but only their activities, to
make sure that they did not destroy any property. It was also understood that
they were there to make sure that no harm came to the strikers from any outside
forces. They were, supposedly, guardians of the peace.

The sun
set, and Crispin was again at his post, wielding his sandok and carefully putting dollops of a vegetable
dish on the plates of the strikers who stood in line formation. The picketline
was alive and lively with the noise of men whose bellies were grumbling, and
whose collective sense of humor was never blunted despite the difficult
circumstances they were in.

Suddenly, a
burst of gunfire. Chaos erupted. Bullets seemed to rain from the sky. Plates
newly laden with food fell to the floor as their owners dropped to the ground
or ran for cover.

Crispin
himself was standing next to the talyasi when it was struck by bullets,
shattering it to pieces. Shrapnel went flying, but he was quick enough to dodge them and he dropped
to a crouch, then lay flat and crawled on his stomach, hoping to reach the
apartment gate and through it, the open street to Arlegui and the Pasig river embankment.

The air was
heavy with the sound of gunfire, the sharp smell of steely dust. To Crispin it
seemed like an eternity had passed since he first fell to the ground. Beyond the loud crack of bullets firing, one
after the other in swift succession, Crispin could hear voices of women crying,
screaming. He could feel the ground trembling under the weight of hundreds of
running feet.

He felt
bullets hit the wall he lay flat against. Chips of plaster and paint rained on his hair. He did not dare move, but
he was struck with anguish and shock when he heard a cry of pain. He lifted his
head a few inches and there, some 40 meters in front of him two of his fellow
strikers were running as if drunk, swaying and zigzagging. Just as
they passed the gate leading to the Malacanang Palace grounds, both men fell
face forward, their bodies struck down by bullets.

Before he
could recover from the shock of what he saw, Crispin noticed another prostrate
body a few feet from his. Unlike him, however,
the man did not make the slightest response to the debris flying around and
falling on him. The man was dead, also shot in the back.

After 15
minutes, the shooting stopped. Carefully, Crispin lifted his head and
cautiously looked around him. He slowly got up, and when he saw that everything
had gotten quiet, he quickly ran out of the compound and into the street.

By then the
police had arrived, their sirens blaring loud, disrupting the sudden deafening
silence.

Crispin did
not know where else to go. Shaking, he walked to the Quiapo karinderia where
the drivers usually hung out. He all but collapsed on one of the chairs, and
the karinderia owner and staff rushed to his side, asking what was wrong.

Crispin
would thereafter remember that moment as the first time he would ever cry in
public. He was filled with grief and rage; anger at what was done to the
strike, and grief over what happened to his fellow strikers. He lay his head on
both hands on wept.

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