True Anon Truth Feed - Episode 382: Tribunal 2
Aired: 2024-05-27
Duration: 01:14:46


=== Hello Wallulians (02:11) ===

[00:00:00]  Do you ever have dreams where you are convinced that like you get confused and you think what happened to your dream was like that happened to me genuinely happened to me last night.
[00:00:12]  No way, me too.
[00:00:13]  Really?
[00:00:13]  What was yours?
[00:00:14]  I can't tell you.
[00:00:16]  Really?
[00:00:17]  Yeah, I can't say.
[00:00:19]  Can I give you a hint?
[00:00:20]  No.
[00:00:21]  Is it bad?
[00:00:22]  No, it's private.
[00:00:24]  But how private?
[00:00:27]  I mean, it's – what do you mean how private?
[00:00:30]  That's a binary situation.
[00:00:32]  I guess that's true.
[00:00:33]  Yeah.
[00:00:33]  I guess mine's private too, then.
[00:00:35]  You can't hear mine.
[00:00:36]  But I woke up this morning.
[00:00:38]  It actually happened to me.
[00:00:39]  This sounds like it.
[00:00:40]  It stayed with me until the afternoon when I realized it was fake.
[00:00:44]  Really?
[00:00:44]  It was a stupid dream.
[00:00:45]  Yeah, I woke up, like, I was carrying out my morning thinking, like, that just happened.
[00:00:49]  Wow, I need to deal with that.
[00:00:50]  Is this why you shaved your head?
[00:01:15]  Once again, guten Tag.
[00:01:17]  Actually, let me look up how to say this real quick.
[00:01:19]  And Wallulian.
[00:01:20]  Dutch.
[00:01:21]  Hello.
[00:01:22]  Do the Wallulians have their own dialect?
[00:01:27]  I think that, yeah, they do.
[00:01:29]  It's like a little more sing-song-y than regular dialects.
[00:01:31]  The Wallulians are a little more sing-songy.
[00:01:33]  Not Dutch, French.
[00:01:34]  The Flemish.
[00:01:36]  Yeah.
[00:01:37]  No, but they're both separate dialects.
[00:01:40]  Hello, how are you?
[00:01:41]  I think it should be kind of like where it's like, lu is added onto every word.
[00:01:45]  Like, hellulu.
[00:01:48]  Okay, I'm going to start to say a completely normal sentence that would take me about 0.2 seconds to say in English.
[00:01:54]  Okay.
[00:01:55]  Hello.
[00:01:57]  Ho, got het met je, mui vrau, ik, respektir, je.
[00:02:05]  Sounded like a weird like German tie.
[00:02:08]  Hello.
[00:02:08]  Bukhant met je.
[00:02:10]  Muy vrau, ik respect dir je.

=== Beautiful Connections in Slums (08:18) ===

[00:02:12]  Yeah, that wasn't very great.
[00:02:13]  So hello, how are you, beautiful woman?
[00:02:15]  I respect you.
[00:02:15]  And that is what I have to say to you.
[00:02:17]  Hello, how are you, beautiful woman?
[00:02:19]  I respect you.
[00:02:20]  My name is Brace Belda.
[00:02:21]  And what is yours?
[00:02:23]  I'm Liz.
[00:02:24]  We are, of course, joined by producer Young Chomsky, and this is... TrueAnon, Belgium edition.
[00:02:31]  Hello.
[00:02:32]  So, two episodes ago, I guess now, was Tribunal 1.
[00:02:36]  Now we are at Tribunal 2.
[00:02:38]  This is the Tribunal Walluloo.
[00:02:42]  Yeah, Walloonian Boogaloo.
[00:02:48]  I feel like something 2, something Boogaloo has more stain power than you'd expect.
[00:02:54]  My brain.
[00:02:55]  People have been doing that since like the 60s.
[00:02:57]  No, just squeezed up in there in those mine graves.
[00:03:01]  So the International People's Tribunal that I went to, I can't do the math, but as of I went to it.
[00:03:11]  Time is constantly recently in Belgium and Brussels was the I mean, just listen to the previous episode on it if you want the full background on it.
[00:03:22]  And some of our feelings on the Dutch.
[00:03:24]  And on the Dutch.
[00:03:25]  But the result is out.
[00:03:27]  The preliminary result is out now.
[00:03:29]  It came out a couple days after the trial happened.
[00:03:32]  And you will be shocked to find out that Bong Bong Marcos, Rodrigo Duterte, and Joe Biden have all been found guilty as motherfucking charged.
[00:03:42]  Yeah, color me, surprise.
[00:03:44]  But one thing that I really like about going to this kind of stuff is not just speaking to people who, like the witnesses or some of the jurors that I was able to speak to, but it's also being able to make connections and speak to people who are maybe longtime members of whatever political movement.
[00:04:05]  Because I think it's one thing that we have stressed on this show is it's good to talk to old people.
[00:04:10]  Absolutely.
[00:04:12]  They know a lot of stuff.
[00:04:13]  do and oftentimes and also a lot of times people don't ask them things anymore Yeah.
[00:04:19]  And so you wouldn't even know how much stuff they know because no one's asking them.
[00:04:23]  And then a font of wisdom and information and stories and humor and wit just pours out of them.
[00:04:31]  Well, it's with that in mind that I was able to get an interview with a woman named Connie Ledesma.
[00:04:37]  So I knew who Connie was before I left.
[00:04:40]  I know a bunch of people that know her, but also she's sort of a known figure within the Filipino left.
[00:04:47]  She has lived in under political asylum in Europe for in the Netherlands, actually, for decades at this point.
[00:04:57]  Her husband, Louis Jalandoni, is the head of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
[00:05:04]  She is a prominent member of Christians for National Liberation, and she was on the negotiating committee.
[00:05:10]  Basically, she did the peace talks on the National Democratic Front side with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and the government of the Philippines.
[00:05:20]  You know, one thing that I really like, and we've talked to a few people about this before, but in the 1960s and 1970s, there was this huge upheaval in the world, right?
[00:05:31]  Where suddenly through that period, like the post-war period to the 1960s, there were these things sort of fermenting that all around the world, for various reasons and various local conditions, but really a lot of it around the same time period, erupted.
[00:05:46]  And people who might not have been heavily involved in politics or thought of themselves as political actors, let alone who may have never imagined that they would be committing themselves to something for the rest of their life, became conscious and understood then and started looking at the world around them with fresh eyes and understanding exactly how our world is run and what maybe we should do about it.
[00:06:11]  Connie is one of these people.
[00:06:13]  She was a nun in the Philippines.
[00:06:17]  And we talk about it a little bit in the interview, but Christianity in the Philippines, it is something.
[00:06:23]  It's huge.
[00:06:24]  They have a black Jesus.
[00:06:25]  I'm not surprised.
[00:06:26]  The black Nazarene, people will, you know, there's like, there's, it's a, well, there's a ton of black Madonnas.
[00:06:31]  Yeah.
[00:06:32]  I don't know what the deal is.
[00:06:33]  I'm not too, as you'll understand in this, you'll listen to in this interview, I don't know that much about Christianity.
[00:06:40]  Although Connie fills me in a little bit.
[00:06:43]  You know, it's one of those things like liberation theology, right?
[00:06:45]  Which we talk about in the interview.
[00:06:48]  You know, you think of this as being like such a huge phenomenon in South and Central America.
[00:06:53]  And I was, and this is, I've known about this for a long time in relation to the Philippines, but it really was massive in the Philippines.
[00:07:00]  When I was there, I went to this slum, which is how I'm not using an epiphany here.
[00:07:08]  They were like, this is a slum.
[00:07:09]  You're coming to the slum where we live.
[00:07:12]  And to the offices of a Catholic priest there.
[00:07:15]  I went on a road trip with a Protestant, which is, I know, not a liberation theology because they got their own thing going on.
[00:07:21]  But I went on a road trip with a Protestant pastor.
[00:07:23]  You know, Christianity there is like very enmeshed in political life.
[00:07:28]  And in contrast to a lot of countries, very meshed on the left in political life, even today.
[00:07:38]  And yeah, I mean, it was an honor to talk to Connie.
[00:07:43]  Again, I give a shout out to Drew, Jesse, and Kat for helping me with the logistics of this interview.
[00:07:47]  And I mean, literally, you know, Connie is a, she obviously is capable of holding a microphone.
[00:07:54]  I mean, this is, I think, in her, maybe late 70s, 80s, but she's, I mean, we walked a long ways with her.
[00:08:01]  She's totally, she's totally able to, but we, I had an interest of being a gentleman, had someone else hold it for her.
[00:08:07]  But I was able to conduct this interview at first, as you can hear, that sound changes a little bit, at first in an unused room of where the tribunal was going on.
[00:08:17]  And then when it was time for the building to close shortly after we started the interview, in Connie's hotel room.
[00:08:25]  And yeah, I think just something to keep in mind with this is that a lot of people fall into this.
[00:08:32]  They're like, oh, I don't know what I'm doing with my life.
[00:08:34]  I don't know.
[00:08:36]  I'm like, I'm 30 and I don't even know who I am yet.
[00:08:39]  But like, it's hearing people's stories like this.
[00:08:42]  It's like you realize that it puts things in perspective, I think, a little bit for ourselves.
[00:08:48]  And the world is a big place, and people are capable of changing it.
[00:08:51]  So that being said, here's Connie Ledesma.
[00:09:06]  First of all, thank you so much for stealing away and talking to me a little bit.
[00:09:10]  I know you also just got into town, but you live far.
[00:09:15]  Yeah, you also live in Western New York.
[00:09:16]  It was a three-hour drive, so.
[00:09:18]  Well, that's, you know, an eight-hour plane ride, so not too different.
[00:09:22]  Yeah, okay.
[00:09:23]  I wanted to ask a bit about your early life, because I know that you joined the nunhood, which is, I don't really know exactly the correct term for it, but as a Jew, I think of it as the nunhood, like the priesthood.
[00:09:37]  I just want to know what led you to that point in life.
[00:09:42]  Yeah, okay.
[00:09:44]  What led me to that?
[00:09:46]  This was in the nine, way before any of you were born.
[00:09:53]  This was in the 1950s, I think.
[00:09:55]  No, 60s.
[00:09:57]  Late 50s, when I decided I finished college and I didn't want to just live like everyone else, that after college, then you look for a boyfriend, then you get married, and you settle down and you have children.
[00:10:14]  And I didn't want to do, I wanted to do something more in my life.
[00:10:20]  And I felt that it was the convent where I could do something.
[00:10:26]  I could live a life that was not for myself.

=== Church's Role in Social Action (14:39) ===

[00:10:31]  And because in those days, there was no activism yet.
[00:10:34]  Remember, in the Philippines, activism started in the late 60s.
[00:10:38]  So this was a decade before that.
[00:10:42]  So, and I liked the idea of helping others.
[00:10:46]  And the congregation I chose was not a teaching congregation.
[00:10:50]  It was working with girls who had social problems.
[00:10:54]  And I found that was meaningful.
[00:10:56]  So I joined the convent there.
[00:11:00]  How did you like being a nun?
[00:11:01]  I liked it.
[00:11:02]  And I learned a lot.
[00:11:04]  And it shaped my life.
[00:11:06]  And I learned to live not for myself.
[00:11:10]  Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
[00:11:12]  And then in the early 70s, when the demonstrations started happening in the Philippines, it also, you know, it really got me interested.
[00:11:24]  And it made me start asking, what's this all about?
[00:11:29]  Yeah, yeah, you mean, you say that there wasn't a lot of activism in the late 50s, early 1960s.
[00:11:35]  I know that there had been, obviously, in the birth of the modern Philippines.
[00:11:41]  And then in the aftermath of World War II, it seemed like there was a great move to depoliticize parts of the population from the government.
[00:11:49]  Yeah.
[00:11:50]  Particularly people who might believe in more radical politics.
[00:11:53]  Yes.
[00:11:54]  And so when you came into this, was there this milieu or this fervent of politicized, I don't know how to describe it.
[00:12:05]  Maybe I'm a little too Jewish for this, but you know, a Catholic church that had politics behind it.
[00:12:09]  I know that the 1960s were really big for the Catholic Church.
[00:12:13]  Yes, it was.
[00:12:15]  And maybe that's why I also got politicized.
[00:12:20]  But in the late 50s and early 70s, there was still no real political activities, I think.
[00:12:31]  Remember, this is also the stage when Jose Maria Sison was also getting politicized.
[00:12:37]  He was also reading Marxism-Leninism.
[00:12:40]  He had traveled to Indonesia to learn more.
[00:12:43]  So there was, in that sense, the political scene was really quiet.
[00:12:50]  On the side of the church, you had Pope John XXIII, who called for the church to go out to the people.
[00:12:59]  And this was radical because the church was used to the people going to the church, not the church going to the people.
[00:13:08]  And what was the place of the Catholic Church in the Philippines at that time?
[00:13:12]  As like every other Catholic church, the whole world.
[00:13:16]  Just a church.
[00:13:18]  It didn't have the kind of politicalization and active politicalization that you have today.
[00:13:25]  And I think it started out with Pope John calling on the church people to go out to the people.
[00:13:32]  And you see, then we started going out and meeting the families of students, going and priests started getting involved with peasants fighting for their land.
[00:13:49]  In Negros, it was fighting for the rights of sugar workers.
[00:13:52]  This was very politicalizing.
[00:13:54]  Suddenly, you see the reality of the Philippine situation, which before was not that obvious.
[00:14:02]  And I'm speaking in terms of the church, because of course they knew there's the poor and all, but to see the struggling, that people were struggling, there were actually struggles of peasants, of farm workers, of sugar workers.
[00:14:17]  But the church wasn't going to them.
[00:14:20]  When the church went to them, then the church people, their eyes opened.
[00:14:26]  And so this suddenly this awareness started to happen.
[00:14:32]  And then also around this time, when this, when this, among, it's not everyone, but it was among those who went out, there were then the demonstrations happening in the Philippines, and there were police brutality, and then there were bigger demonstrations.
[00:14:49]  And then more progressive magazines would write about the history of the Philippines from what you read now in the PSR, the Philippine Society and Revolution.
[00:15:01]  They had read that and they were interpreting Philippines in a new light.
[00:15:05]  Philippine history before was written from the eyes of the conqueror.
[00:15:10]  Those who rebelled, there were more than 200 rebellions against Spain, but they were called bandits.
[00:15:18]  They were called, they were not given.
[00:15:21]  And we studied this in history.
[00:15:22]  You've also been called a bandit probably once or twice in your life, too.
[00:15:25]  I'm sure, yeah.
[00:15:28]  So anyway, these were the terms.
[00:15:30]  So it's like suddenly there was an awakening, a political awakening.
[00:15:36]  And it happened.
[00:15:38]  And also, you see, around Kapataang Makabayan, the youth organization was founded in, I think, the late 60s.
[00:15:48]  And they became politicalized because they were in the national capital region.
[00:15:55]  But during summer, they would go to the provinces and they would start politicalizing the young people there.
[00:16:04]  So this became a whole national, it developed into a national movement.
[00:16:09]  And so people who were also beginning to get involved, this reached our ears and it made us ask questions.
[00:16:17]  And it made us, yeah, it made us want to do more.
[00:16:22]  What was your first experiences when you were becoming politicized?
[00:16:28]  You know, you talk about the plight of the sugar workers.
[00:16:30]  Yeah.
[00:16:30]  I was based in Cebu at the time.
[00:16:34]  And it was also, I think around this time also, the bishop started the social action offices where the priests would also go to the people.
[00:16:46]  People also go to the priests in the offices to seek help.
[00:16:51]  So I, as a nun, I was became involved in the social action office in Cebu.
[00:16:57]  And we would go out to see what was happening.
[00:17:00]  I mean, you know, there's always the peasants clamoring for their land, the landlords wanting to get their land, you know.
[00:17:07]  So this kind of conflicts happened.
[00:17:10]  So I began to get interested and I began to see who was right and who was wrong.
[00:17:14]  What was the right of the peasants to clamor for the land, you know?
[00:17:19]  So this is what started me.
[00:17:21]  And then later I was assigned to Bacolod And there also I saw the situation of the sugar workers there.
[00:17:33]  I saw the situation of the very rich ascenderos.
[00:17:39]  What's that?
[00:17:40]  The ascenderos are the ones.
[00:17:42]  Haciendas was a system, a land system.
[00:17:44]  Oh, Hacienda.
[00:17:45]  Okay, yeah, hacienda.
[00:17:46]  Yes, yeah, yeah.
[00:17:47]  Owned by the, started by the Spaniards, which is going on until today.
[00:17:52]  And the landowners, the landlords, are called the ascenderos.
[00:17:58]  And their very rich lifestyle.
[00:18:00]  At that time, especially, I knew some who had more cars than there were people in the family.
[00:18:08]  So this kind of affluence.
[00:18:11]  And then you also saw, I also saw the living conditions of the farm workers, you know.
[00:18:19]  And this also struck me very much.
[00:18:22]  I mean, what you're describing is sort of like a almost like semi-feudal system.
[00:18:27]  It is a semi-feudal system, yes.
[00:18:28]  Yeah, yeah, where there's like a lot of, are they tenant farmers or almost like serfs on these big plantations?
[00:18:34]  Yeah, although they're not, they're sugar workers.
[00:18:36]  Yeah.
[00:18:37]  And also during milling season, they invite migrant workers or called cicadas to come and help.
[00:18:49]  And really living with meager, meager wages.
[00:18:52]  And because their wages cannot suffice, they have to borrow from the landlord.
[00:18:57]  So they're forever in debt.
[00:18:58]  They're forever, it's just an unbearable situation.
[00:19:03]  And their health situation is bad.
[00:19:05]  The children are malnourished.
[00:19:09]  And then you see the lives of the landlords living very, very wealthy lives, eating fantastic food.
[00:19:17]  It's really a black and white situation.
[00:19:21]  And so that it's either you it hits you between the eyes or it doesn't.
[00:19:27]  So it hit me between the eyes.
[00:19:29]  And that's how I started getting awakened.
[00:19:33]  And so what were the first steps?
[00:19:34]  Because you mentioned the social action office.
[00:19:37]  Was that like a current that flew through a lot of the Catholic Church then?
[00:19:42]  Like people going out to these oftentimes rural situations and seeing the...
[00:19:47]  I know at least three places where they had social action offices, Davao, Cebu, and Bacolod.
[00:19:54]  So I got involved in Cebu first and then later in Bacolod.
[00:19:59]  And in Bacolod, I really worked for the longer time there.
[00:20:05]  And then also because I went to areas, the ascendas, where the workers were on strike.
[00:20:13]  I saw how they lived.
[00:20:15]  I saw One thing that has never left me is a mother with her newborn child, and she had hardly any milk.
[00:20:26]  So she could only feed her child with what they call the am.
[00:20:31]  When you boil rice, and then there's water, you know, the water comes up, you take that water, and that's what she could feed her child.
[00:20:41]  So this is for me, this is the kind of poverty.
[00:20:45]  And then she said, you know, she said, we're fighting for the future of our children.
[00:20:53]  Our parents didn't fight, but we are fighting for the future of our children.
[00:20:58]  And this really struck me also.
[00:21:01]  You see, it's going out to the people that you learn.
[00:21:04]  You learn so much about their lives, and you learn such brave, such determined, such committed people.
[00:21:15]  And then I also went to the strike areas.
[00:21:18]  Oh, yeah, this was one agenda that was on strike.
[00:21:21]  I went to other strike areas, bigger strike areas.
[00:21:24]  And I also met settlers who, you see, Negros is mountainous.
[00:21:33]  And before, when the landlords would try to improve or expand their land, the settlers would move up higher to the mountains.
[00:21:43]  And then they would till the land there and they would make their land.
[00:21:46]  And then they were safe there.
[00:21:49]  You're talking about essentially indigent peasants, right?
[00:21:54]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:54]  But they were called settlers because then they were settling the world.
[00:21:59]  But you see, when Cuba, when Fidel Castro won from Cuba, the United States cut off the sugar quota from Cuba and gave a big percentage to the Philippines.
[00:22:14]  So the landlords had to have more land to plant their sugar because it was such a bonus for them.
[00:22:21]  So they also started pushing into the land area and driving the settlers away.
[00:22:27]  And how would they do that?
[00:22:29]  They just went there and they just pushed the land.
[00:22:32]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:22:32]  Well, because I know something that I learned from my visit to the Philippines was that society, the economics, and the government is run on the lines of guns, goofy.
[00:22:42]  Yeah, especially if you have the blessing of the mayor or the warlord.
[00:22:47]  Yeah.
[00:22:47]  You can do anything.
[00:22:48]  The warlord?
[00:22:49]  Yeah.
[00:22:50]  There were warlords.
[00:22:52]  I'm sure there are still warlords now, but they had, in Dengros at the time, they had a warlord named Gustillo.
[00:23:00]  Tell me about Gustilo.
[00:23:03]  Louis has a long history with Gustilo because he fought against Gustilo.
[00:23:08]  Yes.
[00:23:10]  He dared what others were afraid to do.
[00:23:14]  So it's a long story.
[00:23:15]  I don't know if you want to hear it, but there was this Gustilo wanted to reward a mayor for having won votes for him.
[00:23:27]  So he wanted to, Vilyacin is the mayor, he wanted to grant Viljacin land, certain land.
[00:23:34]  So in order to grant that land, he had someone bulldoze all the houses in the area into the sea so he could give the land.
[00:23:44]  This is coastal land, so he actually bulldozed them into the ocean of war.
[00:23:49]  People went to the social action office.
[00:23:51]  Louis was head of the social action office before, and Louis had a case against him.
[00:23:58]  And you don't fight a warlord because he can kill you.
[00:24:03]  Hence the name.
[00:24:04]  Yeah.
[00:24:04]  So anyway, they brought the settlers from that land and they had been tilling the land for ages.
[00:24:13]  They brought them and they housed them first in the seminary because Louis was still a priest at that time.
[00:24:18]  And then they brought the case to court.
[00:24:20]  I think I'm not sure of all the whole story.
[00:24:22]  But anyway, the bishop tried to mediate and they had a conference, a meeting with Gustilo.
[00:24:31]  And at a certain point, Louis was so angry at the injustice that he banged his hand on the table.
[00:24:39]  And right away, all the guns cracked to shoot him.
[00:24:44]  And Louis, who we'll get to Louis in a second, too, but Louis, is he wearing like his priest?
[00:24:51]  I knew him then.
[00:24:52]  Yeah.
[00:24:53]  But they knew he was a priest.
[00:24:55]  He was with the bishop.
[00:24:56]  Yeah.
[00:24:56]  But he dared fight.
[00:24:58]  And eventually, yeah, they lost the case, but he helped get some of those residents to work in other farms.
[00:25:07]  He was able to help them.

=== Semi-Feudalism in the Philippines (03:55) ===

[00:25:10]  So for those who may be listening, who aren't really familiar with the situation in the Philippines, you mentioned a lot of the haciendas and the landlords and the warlords.
[00:25:20]  What is the system out there for these peasants?
[00:25:23]  Because there's a lot, if anybody who pays attention to politics in the Philippines hears a lot about peasants.
[00:25:27]  And I think for a lot of Americans, maybe they think of some castle in the Middle Ages in the year.
[00:25:32]  What is a peasant in the Philippines?
[00:25:34]  Yeah, and also, for example, if I say peasant in Holland, for example, you don't say peasant, you say farmers, and they're richer than other, I mean, they have government subsidy, they have cattle, they have whatever.
[00:25:50]  But in the Philippines, you see, we describe the Philippines as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society.
[00:25:58]  Semi-colonial, because we are supposed to have our independence, but it was supposed to be given by the United States in 1946.
[00:26:08]  But the independence came with the fact that before independence was given, the United States made sure that it had control of the economics, the politics, the culture, and the military in the Philippines.
[00:26:21]  So it's not really independent.
[00:26:24]  Yeah.
[00:26:25]  It's not colonial because we are no longer a colony, but we are a semi-colony because we are so governed or ruled or dominated by US imperialism.
[00:26:38]  And then why do we say semi-feudal?
[00:26:41]  It's because in the Philippines, the peasants are about 75% of the population in the Philippines are peasants.
[00:26:51]  Wow.
[00:26:51]  But a large, large majority do not own their land.
[00:26:55]  So they have to work for the landlord.
[00:26:57]  And when they work, they work for very meager prices.
[00:27:01]  For example, they have to plant, they get their crops.
[00:27:05]  And then when the crops and the harvest come, most of the time it's they give 70% to the landlord who did nothing and they get only 30%.
[00:27:15]  So it's a very unequal situation.
[00:27:18]  And it's still feudal customs that prevail.
[00:27:22]  And that's why we call it semi-feudalism.
[00:27:25]  So the peasants there are very poor people.
[00:27:28]  The most don't own their land.
[00:27:31]  They have to till and they have to, it's their means of livelihood.
[00:27:36]  They get paid for what they work on, the land.
[00:27:40]  And sometimes, in order to earn more money, not only the man works, but the wife works, the children work.
[00:27:47]  They're all working so that they're able to have a bigger, yeah, do more work in one day.
[00:27:55]  And only the man is paid for all that work, which the whole family does.
[00:28:00]  So it's a very unjust, exploitative system.
[00:28:05]  But they are also becoming aware of the situation and they are also organizing and learning to stand up and fight.
[00:28:19]  And there is also the New People's Army that is also in the countryside with them because the peasants are in the countrysides.
[00:28:28]  And with the help of the New People's Army, they can now negotiate with the landlords.
[00:28:35]  And in many cases, the price that the percentage of what they get from their produce, sometimes it is 50-50, 50% for them, 50% for the landlords.
[00:28:48]  There are even cases when they get 70% and the landlord gets 30%.
[00:28:53]  And this is, of course, after years of being organized, of being politicalized, and having their political strength to bargain with the landlord.

=== Political Awakening (15:32) ===

[00:29:05]  But back in the 1960s and 1970s when you were getting involved in this, it was not like that whatsoever.
[00:29:10]  No, not at all.
[00:29:11]  And so, I mean, that must have been, you know, difficult to see because, you know, you're working in this sort of liberation theology inflected social Catholicism that's happening out in the Philippines at this time.
[00:29:26]  But you run up against all of these very entrenched interests, right?
[00:29:30]  Like these landlords, the warlords, because these people, I mean, we've talked about this on our show before, but I mean, I think it's really, it's worth mentioning how entrenched, especially a lot of very rich families are in the Philippines and how much runs on this, what I think of as like a cousin network of everyone's, you know, your cousins with the mayor, who's cousins with the police chief.
[00:29:53]  And it seems like throughout this period, people, like a lot of young people like yourself, were thinking like, well, what can we do to actually change this stuff?
[00:30:02]  Because it seems like the actual routes for changing things, especially at that period in the Philippines in the 1960s, 1970s, there were very few avenues for political change.
[00:30:12]  Yes, but then you see what happened was the National Democratic Movement started in the late 60s with the re-establishment of the Communist Party of the Philippines.
[00:30:23]  And that made a big, that has made a big change in Philippine history.
[00:30:28]  And many, you see, what the Communist Party did is they analyzed Philippine society and they analyzed or they gave a program of what should be done to change and to improve the Philippines.
[00:30:42]  And many people who became who studied this became aware of what was happening and started to believe and follow these principles.
[00:30:54]  Many became members of the Communist Party.
[00:30:57]  Not everyone did, but many people did follow.
[00:31:00]  And it has made a big change in the Philippines.
[00:31:04]  That you have now, for example, in the areas in the mountains, in the guerrilla fronts, you have thousands of people, hundreds and thousands of people who are now building their own lives, building the lives in a democratic way, fighting the exploitation and oppression, building a new Philippines.
[00:31:27]  That's happening now.
[00:31:28]  It didn't happen in the 60s.
[00:31:30]  But eventually you ceased being a nun.
[00:31:34]  I'm not really sure how to phrase that.
[00:31:36]  You left the convent.
[00:31:39]  What did that look?
[00:31:39]  Because you mentioned that many of your peers within the church, including Louis, who I think we should probably get to, were becoming more politically awakened and were learning about a new way to sort of see things.
[00:31:55]  And you mentioned with the refoundation of the Communist Party in the late 1960s, this was something that was also getting over to you.
[00:32:02]  And so, You know, when you met Louis, your husband, you met on a political level.
[00:32:12]  Was there a lot of people leaving the church to sort of join this new democratic movement?
[00:32:17]  Actually, a lot of people didn't leave the church.
[00:32:22]  Let me see what circumstances.
[00:32:25]  For me, I began to see more and more that I preferred to just do the work with the workers, with the sugar workers, without being a nun.
[00:32:43]  And maybe the turning point there was when Marcos declared martial law in 1972.
[00:32:51]  And the activists started going to hiding.
[00:32:55]  I knew where everyone was.
[00:32:57]  And how could I continue being a nun?
[00:33:02]  That was for me.
[00:33:03]  That was the turning point for me.
[00:33:05]  But maybe I should tell you something about also like for the religious.
[00:33:10]  Because what was going on in Negros wasn't only in Negros that it was going on.
[00:33:15]  In Manila, in the different provinces, religious, as I said, had gone out of the convent, had gone priests and priests, church workers, nuns went out to the people and started getting politicalized.
[00:33:29]  And in Manila, and also in Negros, we began discussing among ourselves, the priests and nuns, we would meet, let's say, once a month, just to talk about where we were, where were we going, what was happening to us, you know, because these were new experiences.
[00:33:46]  And then after a while, and actually, this was led by Louis.
[00:33:50]  Really?
[00:33:50]  He was the one who was calling the meetings.
[00:33:52]  And then later we invited the priests and nuns from Iloilo, from the other Visayan islands, from Iloilo, from Samar, and I think Cebu also, yeah, Cebu, from other Visayan Isles.
[00:34:06]  And we would discuss among ourselves.
[00:34:08]  So we became a big group.
[00:34:10]  And then we said, you know, let's form an organization.
[00:34:15]  And so that was how it was.
[00:34:16]  Then when we heard in Manila, they were doing the same thing.
[00:34:21]  They were saying they would also form an organization and they would call their organization Christians for National Liberation.
[00:34:29]  And so we, I know, I remember we had a name, but when we heard that, we said, yeah, let's call ourselves Christians for National Liberation.
[00:34:38]  Let's be one with, let's be one organization.
[00:34:43]  And because by that time, all of us were national democrats already.
[00:34:50]  In other words, we believed in national democracy.
[00:34:54]  We believed in the NDF, I think, had not yet been established.
[00:35:03]  It was in 73.
[00:35:05]  And we didn't even call ourselves National Democrats.
[00:35:08]  But we all believed in national democracy.
[00:35:10]  That's why when they said Christians for National Liberation, hey, that sounds good.
[00:35:14]  And so we, the first Congress was actually held in August 1973 in Manila.
[00:35:22]  And several hundreds attended.
[00:35:26]  And the idea of Christians for National Liberation at the time was to be an umbrella Christian organization.
[00:35:32]  So not just for Catholics.
[00:35:35]  Not just for Catholics.
[00:35:36]  And it would have a labor component.
[00:35:40]  It would have urban poor component.
[00:35:43]  So that was how it started.
[00:35:46]  And so being part, an active member of CNL, and then martial law gets declared, and everyone goes into hiding.
[00:35:57]  And you had to have new forms of struggle.
[00:36:00]  It just changed my life completely.
[00:36:02]  Well, there's two things I want to ask about.
[00:36:04]  The first is, and I think we should actually, well, actually, I guess there's three things that I want to ask about.
[00:36:10]  But the first, and I probably should have asked this a little bit earlier, but just for listeners to know, Christianity is a major force.
[00:36:16]  So is Islam, but Christianity is a major force in the Philippines.
[00:36:20]  I mean, the statistics for people who at least reply to a survey saying they believe, it's like 85, 90%.
[00:36:28]  And also it's cultural.
[00:36:29]  Yes.
[00:36:29]  A lot of it is cultural.
[00:36:31]  I mean, people in the Philippines, you mean, no?
[00:36:34]  Yes, in the Philippines.
[00:36:35]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:36:36]  Because people may not go to church, but they will believe in so many practices.
[00:36:44]  Or they go to church, but they are actually not, they don't live Christian lives.
[00:36:48]  Yeah.
[00:36:49]  Well, that's not just the Philippines.
[00:36:52]  Yeah, well.
[00:36:53]  And the Black Nazarene as well.
[00:36:56]  Yeah, Good Friday.
[00:36:57]  They have a lot of these cultural events that actually are just cultural events.
[00:37:03]  Yeah.
[00:37:05]  Well, there's, and I know that there's a lot of people who like, yeah, there's a lot of offshoots of Christianity also in the Philippines as well.
[00:37:13]  But I know it's a very major potent cultural force.
[00:37:17]  The second thing I want to ask is, just for listeners who might not know, when you say national democracy, and you don't have to, you know, you don't have to give me the whole spiel, but what do you mean by that?
[00:37:27]  Well, first of all, national, you would mean we want to be independent.
[00:37:33]  We do not want the domination of imperialism.
[00:37:37]  And that's why it's national.
[00:37:38]  And democracy is that there is, well, the word democracy, it's equality for the large majority.
[00:37:47]  We know there will always be a group that will be, that will try to stay rich and all.
[00:37:53]  But that democracy, the democratic processes will continue.
[00:37:57]  will be land for the landless, jobs for people, honest or trade unions, wages for workers, you know, that's democracy.
[00:38:13]  So it's when you believe in that, when you believe in a program that will fight for a Philippines that is free, that is free of imperialism, that that has that gives services to the people like health care, education, housing.
[00:38:33]  You know, it seems so maybe so normal for you.
[00:38:38]  I don't know how it is in the United States.
[00:38:40]  But in Europe, most of the health care, I mean, you can get good health care, not in the Philippines.
[00:38:49]  You have to be rich to get good health care.
[00:38:51]  But, you know, so these are essential social services that are needed, just, you know, to improve the lives of the people.
[00:38:59]  And then the rights of children, the rights of women, getting rid of unequal treaties.
[00:39:04]  I'm trying to think now all the points of the National Democratic Front because the NDF has these 12 points of this program.
[00:39:13]  And people in the NDF will adhere to this program.
[00:39:19]  This is the binding.
[00:39:21]  This is what binds the 18 organizations of the NDF, the 12-point program.
[00:39:26]  Well, I want to get to the NDF in a second, but let's go back in time to 1972.
[00:39:31]  So Marcos declares martial law, which is something we've talked about on this show before.
[00:39:37]  You know, we had an interview with Bonnie Elagin, who talked at length about his experience in that, but I think in general also the milieu.
[00:39:43]  But there was a series of false flag terror attacks that carried out by the Marcos government, which he used as a pretext to declare martial law and specifically to declare martial law with the aim of suppressing the very quickly growing communist and national democratic movement.
[00:40:02]  That's what he used as an excuse.
[00:40:04]  Of course, yes.
[00:40:04]  Because he wanted to stay in power.
[00:40:07]  Well, that was definitely a very great bonus of it.
[00:40:11]  Did you go into hiding in 72?
[00:40:13]  Yes.
[00:40:14]  What was that like?
[00:40:16]  Well, it was a new experience.
[00:40:19]  Like you have to make sure that you don't stay in place where you usually go.
[00:40:26]  You don't see your family anymore.
[00:40:31]  But it took time in the beginning, you know, because suddenly the funny thing is, we were preparing, we were kept saying, you know, what shall we do if Marcos declares martial law?
[00:40:42]  We had sessions on that.
[00:40:44]  And we would plan.
[00:40:45]  You know, I can't remember a single plan that we made because when it happened, we were so shocked that he did declare martial law.
[00:40:53]  And then suddenly, like, what do we do now?
[00:40:56]  And, you know, it's interesting, just as a historical footnote, too.
[00:40:59]  You know, when the original Communist Party of the Philippines, the one that was founded in 1930, when that was basically destroyed over successive times, it was destroyed in 1931 and then destroyed in World War II and then destroyed after World War II.
[00:41:13]  Each one of those times was also because they were caught unprepared.
[00:41:17]  And it's really, I think, because of the nature of the refounded Communist Party and of a lot of the organizations that were sort of component members of what became the NDF that that didn't happen again.
[00:41:32]  It's just us in Negros because I know that so many other people way before martial law had already gone underground.
[00:41:40]  Yeah.
[00:41:40]  Yeah, prepared for it.
[00:41:42]  But for us, we were so innocent then, we thought it would never happen.
[00:41:46]  Yeah.
[00:41:46]  I'll tell you a story because as I said, you know, we had members from different Visayan islands come and became CNL members.
[00:41:56]  And one of them, I met years later.
[00:42:02]  And when Marshall was declared, we heard he went up to the mountains.
[00:42:07]  So when I met him later, he had gone down by that time.
[00:42:09]  I said, why did you go up to the mountains?
[00:42:11]  And he said, don't you remember?
[00:42:13]  That's what we planned.
[00:42:15]  You forgot the plan.
[00:42:17]  If Marshall would be declared, we would go up to the mountains.
[00:42:20]  So he said, he found a gun and he went up to the mountains.
[00:42:24]  And all of us forgot what to do.
[00:42:26]  Were you at this point, you know, not to pry into your personal life, but were you and Louis had begun your romance?
[00:42:34]  We had a relationship already at that time.
[00:42:36]  Because for listeners who don't know, and I don't want to embarrass you, especially as we're a guest in your room, but you have a very famous, one of the great loves of the Philippines is you and your husband, who, you know, the, you must admit it's a rather, you know, romantic tale.
[00:42:53]  The former nun and leaving the nunhood or whatever, the convent, leaving the priesthood and, you know, getting married and becoming sort of a, I guess you could say actually at this point, immediately an outlaw couple.
[00:43:06]  That was, is it easy to navigate sort of a newfound romance while you're both on the run from the government?
[00:43:13]  I don't know how to answer that.
[00:43:14]  That's fair enough.
[00:43:15]  We did what we did.
[00:43:16]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:17]  You know, at that time, you don't think anymore.
[00:43:19]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:43:21]  And just do it.
[00:43:24]  Great advice to anyone listening, by the way.
[00:43:27]  So eventually in 1973, I believe the National Democratic Front of the Philippines begins.
[00:43:34]  And CNL is one of the constituent parties that is the beginning of that.
[00:43:38]  What was the aim of starting the NDF?
[00:43:41]  Bringing all these different groups together?
[00:43:42]  And what kind of groups were initially involved in it?
[00:43:44]  As far as I know, it was CNL, Makibaka, the women's organization, KM, the youth organization.
[00:43:53]  Of course, the Communist Party, the New People's Army, there was also a trade union organization, there was a cultural organization, I think there was the teachers and the health.
[00:44:06]  I think about, yeah.
[00:44:09]  And it was, you know, it was to have as many in a well, a front is to unite different sectors to fight the dictatorship and to work for a national democratic society in the Philippines.
[00:44:26]  So these were all different groups who were united under the leadership of the Communist Party to.
[00:44:30]  Also, yeah, and also those who were who wanted to do something, you know, it was.
[00:44:35]  Yeah.

=== Solidarity Groups Formed (11:11) ===

[00:44:37]  And so how did your experience of martial law, I mean, and you were eventually, you were captured at one point.
[00:44:44]  You were sent to prison.
[00:44:45]  In the beginning, it was really finding where to go.
[00:44:47]  And then eventually we were able to rent what we called underground houses.
[00:44:58]  Really?
[00:44:59]  Yeah, there would be several.
[00:45:01]  And then also during that time, when the first young people went up to the mountains to start the NPA.
[00:45:10]  So it was after martial law was declared, a few months after, that the first NPA went up to start the NPA in the mountains of Negro.
[00:45:22]  So what was the theory about starting in the mountains in general, or in the countryside, rather than having sort of like an urban, the most population there, and they are the most exploited and they're most oppressed?
[00:45:35]  And you know, that's what happened when the first NPA of the young young men went up there and they had called together the people and they were explaining what what, what was happening to martial law.
[00:45:51]  You know, they were explaining things and suddenly the people asked, can you tell us who you are?
[00:45:57]  And so they said okay, we will tell you.
[00:45:59]  We are the NEW People's ARMY.
[00:46:01]  And a woman embraced them and said, we have conceived of you for the longest time.
[00:46:11]  You can see how people have waited for them, because they know that these are the people that will help to liberate them.
[00:46:20]  Um, you know for yourself.
[00:46:22]  Uh, you know as I. As I said, you were eventually captured and um could, could you share your experience and what happened with that?
[00:46:29]  Yes uh, we were captured.
[00:46:32]  The whole long story.
[00:46:34]  How come we got eventually captured?
[00:46:36]  There were four of us who were captured uh, husband and wife and Louis and myself.
[00:46:42]  The four of us, and Uh, we were captured in Pacolod and then, after a while, transferred with all the political prisoners in Pakolod to Cebu.
[00:46:54]  What were you charged with?
[00:46:55]  No charges, no, they don't charge you.
[00:46:57]  There's no charge, they just arrested you.
[00:47:00]  And it's the military, the police, yeah, it was the police.
[00:47:03]  I know it was the military.
[00:47:05]  Okay, yeah, I guess.
[00:47:06]  No, but the funny thing is, we had no charge.
[00:47:09]  We were released and then we were charged in court.
[00:47:15]  Really?
[00:47:16]  Yeah.
[00:47:17]  And yeah, anyway, that's a long story, another story.
[00:47:20]  But anyway, then we went to Cebu and then we were brought to Manila.
[00:47:25]  And Louis was put in the youth rehabilitation center, and I was put in the Ipil.
[00:47:33]  What was the Ipil?
[00:47:35]  It was a bigger prison.
[00:47:36]  Youth were all men.
[00:47:38]  Ipil had women and men.
[00:47:41]  And yeah, it was there.
[00:47:44]  It's where I met a lot of activists, especially Manila activists, and also from the provinces, because then they would get several political prisoners from the provinces and put them in Manila.
[00:48:00]  And that's where I made lifelong friends.
[00:48:03]  Really?
[00:48:03]  Oh, yes.
[00:48:04]  People you're still in touch with today?
[00:48:06]  With people you still know today.
[00:48:08]  Yeah, or some have passed away.
[00:48:10]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:48:11]  Some have been killed in battle because some of those who were released became NPA and were killed in battle.
[00:48:19]  Wilma Chamson was with me in prison.
[00:48:23]  And she's been recently been murdered, martyred.
[00:48:28]  So how did you eventually get released?
[00:48:32]  Another long story.
[00:48:33]  Well, I think we can hear some of it at least.
[00:48:38]  The military raided the National Council of Churches in the Philippines and arrested many religious.
[00:48:48]  Sorry, they raided the National Council of Churches?
[00:48:50]  They raided the National Council, National NCCP in the Philippines.
[00:48:55]  And among them were some Americans who were arrested.
[00:49:03]  So the church leaders went after several months.
[00:49:06]  The church leaders went to Marcos and asked to release all religious.
[00:49:13]  And Marcos agreed.
[00:49:14]  So little by little, the religious were released.
[00:49:17]  That's how we were released.
[00:49:19]  We were not all at one time, but more or less, those who had a religious background got released because of that agreement of Marcos with the churches.
[00:49:29]  Do you think he was just trying to appeal to, like, you know, as a good Christian man or whatever, we're going to let these people out?
[00:49:35]  He did it anyway, so what is good.
[00:49:37]  Exactly.
[00:49:38]  So, what did you do after that?
[00:49:41]  I couldn't go back to Negros at the time.
[00:49:44]  And we worked in the Apostolic Center, Louis and Louis worked in the church labor center and he got involved in the Latondeña strike, which was the first major strike during martial law.
[00:49:59]  Oh, interesting.
[00:49:59]  Yeah.
[00:50:00]  And together with Edjob, another martyr.
[00:50:04]  And after that, Marcos banned completely strikes because after that first strike, the Latondeña strike, there were about 50 strikes that just happened all over Manila.
[00:50:18]  The people were just, the workers were just waiting to go on strike.
[00:50:22]  So anyway, that's another story.
[00:50:24]  And he banned them completely.
[00:50:25]  Yeah, he banned it completely.
[00:50:28]  And then I worked in a, in like a solidarity desk for sugar workers, trying to see how we could get, bring out information on the situation of sugar workers, etc.
[00:50:41]  Was this like underground work or was this like...
[00:50:43]  No, this became legal.
[00:50:44]  It became legal work.
[00:50:45]  Yeah.
[00:50:46]  But it was still, I understand, there was still like a pretty heavy atmosphere of repression.
[00:50:51]  Yes.
[00:50:52]  Yeah.
[00:50:54]  This was still the height of martial law.
[00:50:56]  But you eventually, a few years later, were accepted as a political asylum refugee in the Netherlands.
[00:51:04]  Yes.
[00:51:05]  Can you tell me about the story how you got from 74 to that?
[00:51:08]  Yeah, because after a while, the NDF asked Louis and myself to leave the country to do international work to do educational work or inform people what was happening in the Philippines.
[00:51:25]  Because all these tortures, all these disappearances, and all of that was happening and all the resistance, people the outside didn't know about it.
[00:51:35]  So they asked us to leave.
[00:51:37]  And we found our way to Holland.
[00:51:40]  We asked for political asylum and were granted.
[00:51:44]  And that's what we've been doing since.
[00:51:47]  So, yeah, I mean, that's another question I have because I know you've done quite a lot of international work.
[00:51:52]  In the mid-1970s, that was sort of, there was a milieu of internationalism.
[00:51:57]  Yes.
[00:51:58]  I guess you could say internationally.
[00:52:00]  You know, famously, there was a lot of support for like Iranian students against the Shah or like the PLO or etc., etc.
[00:52:07]  And ANC.
[00:52:08]  ANC, exactly.
[00:52:10]  Yeah.
[00:52:12]  How was the Philippines movement, the movement of the Philippines for National Democracy received elsewhere?
[00:52:17]  Were there solidarity organizations?
[00:52:19]  Did you guys forge ties with other parties, non-state actors?
[00:52:24]  What was going on?
[00:52:25]  Actually, when we came out, there was already a solidarity group in the Netherlands because these were, you see, in the Netherlands before, they had this practice, something like a Peace Corps in the United States, what they call the Dutch Volunteers.
[00:52:39]  And these were Dutch volunteers who worked in the Philippines and then came back.
[00:52:44]  And then, when martial law was happening, during the third anniversary of martial law, the priests in the Philippines were writing the priests that they knew outside, do something for martial law, make a commemoration.
[00:52:58]  So, they had an activity.
[00:53:00]  And after that, they decided to form a group.
[00:53:02]  And it was called Philippine Grupp Nederland.
[00:53:05]  That means Philippine Group Netherlands.
[00:53:08]  Philipaina is how they say it?
[00:53:10]  Yeah, Philipainer.
[00:53:11]  Philippiner?
[00:53:13]  Philippainen.
[00:53:14]  That must have been, I just, as an aside, so crazy to move from the Philippines to the Netherlands.
[00:53:20]  That is a big culture shift right there.
[00:53:23]  Yes.
[00:53:23]  But when we came, there was already the Filipine Grupp Nederland.
[00:53:28]  And they welcomed us.
[00:53:30]  And they helped us find housing.
[00:53:31]  They helped us with our asylum needs and all of that.
[00:53:34]  So that was very important for us.
[00:53:37]  Because really, culturally, it was like, my goodness, it was really something.
[00:53:43]  It was really very different.
[00:53:44]  And we were just the two of us.
[00:53:46]  And by that time, we had a child.
[00:53:48]  And so those three of us in this world that you know.
[00:53:52]  And I assume, you know, I don't want to make too much of an assumption here, but I feel like it's safe that I can assume you did not speak Dutch before living in the Philippines.
[00:54:00]  Do you speak Dutch now?
[00:54:02]  I can speak Dutch.
[00:54:03]  That is one of the most impressive things I've ever heard a human being say.
[00:54:06]  Having been adjacent to the Netherlands for two days now, I can tell you that it is the most frightening thing I could ever imagine trying to do is to learn Dutch.
[00:54:15]  No, I remember when I would go walk the streets and I'd see the little children speaking Dutch and I say, wow, they can speak Dutch.
[00:54:24]  It is really impressive.
[00:54:25]  The words are all like longer than most sentences in other languages.
[00:54:29]  I mean, we've learned through the years.
[00:54:31]  Yes.
[00:54:31]  And we've still been able to do our work.
[00:54:34]  Yeah, so what does the international work for the NDF look like in the 1970s?
[00:54:39]  It's a lot of work.
[00:54:43]  One, we started forming also solidarity groups or helping solidarity groups be formed.
[00:54:49]  Because as you say, at that time, in the 70s and into the 80s, solidarity groups, you know, any struggle had a solidarity group.
[00:54:57]  Oh, yeah.
[00:54:58]  Any struggle you've never heard of, they had a solidarity group.
[00:55:02]  And so there were a lot of solidarity groups in Germany, in the Netherlands, in Italy, in Sweden, in Ireland, in the UK, Austria.
[00:55:16]  That's Europe.
[00:55:18]  Even mentioning there was also in Australia, New Zealand, so all over the world.
[00:55:26]  Today, solidarity is not, there are still solidarity formations, which is very good.
[00:55:31]  And for example, now it's the young people who have taken over.
[00:55:35]  And they're very creative.
[00:55:37]  I must say, they really are very creative the way they're doing the solidarity work.
[00:55:42]  And it's more now relating different groups working together, which I think makes it much stronger.

=== U.S. Base Plans in the Philippines (15:27) ===

[00:55:49]  Are you talking about something like ILPS or like?
[00:55:51]  ILPS.
[00:55:52]  And for the Philippines, I'm speaking of the Friends of the Filipino People in Struggle or FFPS.
[00:55:58]  Yeah, which is already worldwide.
[00:56:00]  They're three years old, but they're worldwide.
[00:56:02]  It grows fast.
[00:56:05]  You were also involved in the peace negotiations at several points.
[00:56:10]  And you still are.
[00:56:12]  Well, that's something else I wanted to ask about, but I don't know how much you can talk about that.
[00:56:16]  We can get to that.
[00:56:17]  But when did negotiations first begin with the government?
[00:56:21]  I think there's maybe some misconceptions about peace negotiations as well, because I know that you guys operate on something called framework for a just peace.
[00:56:31]  And I want to talk about how that came to be, what negotiations with, after the Marcos government fell, how that began and what it turned into.
[00:56:42]  Actually, the first, what you can say, movement for peace or towards peace were what is famously called the ceasefire in 1986, 87.
[00:56:59]  This was initiated by the Kore Aquino government and responded to by the National Democratic Front of the Philippines.
[00:57:06]  And there were three negotiators, Satur Ocampo, his wife Bobby Malai, and Antonio Zumel were the three negotiators.
[00:57:19]  And it started out with let's have a ceasefire.
[00:57:23]  And all over the Philippines was supposed to be ceasefire.
[00:57:26]  And they never got to look at the agenda.
[00:57:30]  And they started, I think, in December or October, November, when they, I think actually October, they started 86, and then they were talking until January 87.
[00:57:47]  And then farmers were, the peasants were marching to Malacanang and asking for land, having demands, and they were shot at.
[00:57:57]  And so many were killed at that time.
[00:57:59]  And after that, then the peace talk said, no, we stop the peace talks.
[00:58:04]  We cancel the peace talks because the peasants were just going there for reasonable demands and they're shot at.
[00:58:13]  So that was the end of the talks.
[00:58:15]  And then since 87 or maybe 88, there were certain government officials who were trying to revive the talks.
[00:58:26]  And so they would make trips to Utrecht at the time, Utrecht, the Netherlands, and to talk to Joma Sison.
[00:58:33]  Because by that time, Joma Sison had arrived in the Netherlands in exile.
[00:58:38]  For those listeners who don't know who that is, who is Joma Sisa?
[00:58:42]  He's the founding chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, a very influential person, an ideologue, educator, cultural artist.
[00:58:52]  Anyway, he always exercised a great influence on the national democratic movement and on the thinking in the Philippines.
[00:59:02]  A lot of people were influenced by him.
[00:59:05]  He passed away about two years ago.
[00:59:08]  Anyway, government officials, the governor of Pampanga came there, and there were several moves to try to restart the talks.
[00:59:18]  But nothing happened during the time of the presidency of Coruson Aquino.
[00:59:25]  When she was no longer president, it was the former general Fidel Ramos who became president.
[00:59:32]  And everyone thought, a general, nothing can happen.
[00:59:35]  And funnily, strangely enough, it was in the term of General Ramos that the most advances were made during the peace talks.
[00:59:46]  So then it was in these peace talks that the framework agreement, the Hague Joint Declaration, was signed, in which they said that both the government of the Republic of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front are fighting for a just and lasting peace.
[01:00:04]  And that there would be four points in the agenda, which would be respect for human rights and international humanitarian law.
[01:00:14]  Second, social economic reforms.
[01:00:17]  Third, political and constitutional reforms.
[01:00:20]  And then the end of hostilities and disposition of forces.
[01:00:23]  These would be the four points in the agenda.
[01:00:26]  So can you, I want to ask about the fourth point a little bit, because I think a lot of people hear peace talks.
[01:00:32]  They mean essentially like we are coming, there's an armistice and we are going to surrender, right?
[01:00:37]  But that's not what you guys mean by peace talks.
[01:00:40]  No, because for us, we have to address the roots of the armed conflict.
[01:00:45]  Because if you don't address the roots of the armed conflict, you may lay down your arms, but the problem is still there.
[01:00:53]  People will pick up the arms.
[01:00:55]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:00:56]  And so it's, yeah, yeah, that makes complete sense to me.
[01:00:59]  It's as simple as that.
[01:01:02]  What prevented further progress with the peace talks?
[01:01:06]  It's actually, it's not the NDF, because we've always been open.
[01:01:11]  We've always been ready to talk.
[01:01:14]  We've always been ready to sit down.
[01:01:19]  Well, we were able to finish the first part of the agenda, comprehensive agreement on respect for human rights and international humanitarian law, or what we call the Karel.
[01:01:34]  But President Ramos did not sign that.
[01:01:37]  It was the next president, Joseph Estrada, who signed it.
[01:01:40]  And then the talks progressed a little, and then somehow Estrada suspended the talks.
[01:01:48]  And then the next president was, I think, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
[01:01:52]  She started the talks again.
[01:01:54]  And then after a while, they stopped the talks.
[01:01:57]  So it's on again, off again.
[01:02:00]  Yeah.
[01:02:00]  And Duterte started it very well.
[01:02:04]  It was going very fast.
[01:02:05]  And then suddenly, just really suddenly, he stopped the talks, demanded everybody, the panel to go home, all their representatives.
[01:02:16]  And until now, until last November, when members of the government and the NDF signed a paper in Oslo that said we are willing to resume talks.
[01:02:30]  Well, Kanye, I want to ask you really quick about Duterte because you knew him a little bit.
[01:02:34]  And from everything I just, you know, you don't have to go on the record with this or anything, but everyone I know that's ever had any adjacency to Duterte said he was a mercurial figure at best and was prone to rapid shifts in moods and action, I guess you could say.
[01:02:52]  And this seems kind of in line with that.
[01:02:54]  Yeah.
[01:02:54]  It's a pity because when he came, he had just been elected president.
[01:03:00]  Yeah.
[01:03:00]  He hadn't even been sworn in.
[01:03:02]  He sent a delegation to talk to us to resume peace talks.
[01:03:06]  He referred to you guys as a government at one point.
[01:03:09]  Oh, I didn't realize.
[01:03:10]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:03:11]  He referred to you guys as like a rebel government or whatever.
[01:03:16]  And the movement had a lot of dealings with him.
[01:03:19]  Yes.
[01:03:19]  As a matter of fact, when one of our commanders, Commander Parago, died, he was laid in state in Davao City.
[01:03:26]  And thousands went to see him.
[01:03:27]  And Duterte went to see him.
[01:03:29]  Well, not only.
[01:03:30]  Duterte was the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines student in school.
[01:03:38]  He was Jose Maria Cisan's student at college.
[01:03:43]  But I think he was seen as like a very, especially after maybe the first few months of his presidency.
[01:03:52]  Yeah.
[01:03:52]  The first few months, because then suddenly he changed his mind for whatever reason, whether it was the pressure from the military or the pressure from the U.S. or whatever, but he suddenly turned, what, 180 degrees?
[01:04:08]  Yes, absolutely.
[01:04:09]  Yeah.
[01:04:10]  Yeah.
[01:04:12]  You know, I want to ask about, because now Bong Bong Marcos is the president.
[01:04:17]  And as Levy was telling you earlier, we went to one of his rallies before he was elected.
[01:04:23]  And, you know, I think a lot of people were surprised to see that there was a statement about resumption of peace talks that came out in, I believe, November.
[01:04:31]  November of last year.
[01:04:33]  Can you give us any insight on what preceded that or what?
[01:04:36]  It was the initiative from the GRP side, the GRP being the government of the Republic of the Philippines.
[01:04:43]  Gotcha.
[01:04:44]  Yeah.
[01:04:44]  And actually, we had been holding discussions very, very secret, which was upon their request.
[01:04:52]  And we agreed that was no problem until we could sign the statement.
[01:04:57]  And the statement was very simple, that we were willing to resume talks to address the root causes of the armed conflict.
[01:05:06]  Now, I suppose it would be what is your definition?
[01:05:10]  What is their definition?
[01:05:11]  What is our definition of the roots of the armed conflict?
[01:05:16]  Because for them, the roots of the armed conflict is the NPA.
[01:05:20]  It's the communists themselves, rather.
[01:05:22]  For us, fell out of a coconut tree.
[01:05:25]  The landlessness, it is the joblessness, it is the domination of imperialism.
[01:05:32]  We have another analysis.
[01:05:34]  But we will go to the table, we will talk to them.
[01:05:38]  We've done it before.
[01:05:40]  And for example, when we started working on the Karil, if you saw their version and their draft and you saw our draft, you would never think we would come to anything.
[01:05:52]  But we worked on it.
[01:05:53]  We worked word for word, comma for comma.
[01:05:57]  And we came out with the document.
[01:06:00]  So it can be done.
[01:06:02]  Well, because I know that they'd put your husband on the terror list there a couple of years ago.
[01:06:09]  Duterte did.
[01:06:10]  Duterte did.
[01:06:11]  Okay, so hopefully with Marcos, it's sort of they might be willing to still negotiate despite these new kind of threats.
[01:06:21]  Because that's what we're saying.
[01:06:22]  Because Duterte put NDF in the terrorist list and my husband and he has put several others in the terrorist list.
[01:06:33]  So we could have said, why do you talk to terrorists?
[01:06:37]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:06:38]  And, you know, you keep in mind, your husband is a, just for listeners, your husband is a man who lives in the Netherlands and is a father and is involved in some political activities.
[01:06:50]  But, yeah, to add him to the terrorist event, it seemed like a...
[01:06:53]  He headed, he was chairman of the negotiating panel.
[01:06:57]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:06:57]  From 1992 until 2016 when he retired.
[01:07:04]  So...
[01:07:04]  So let me just ask you really quickly too about U.S. imperialism in the Philippines.
[01:07:10]  Because I think a lot of people are maybe vaguely aware of the colony status that it had.
[01:07:17]  Maybe slightly more educated about some of the crazily unequal treaties that were signed in the aftermath of World War II.
[01:07:25]  And then the bases there.
[01:07:28]  But now there is this renewed approach from the U.S. government under Biden and Trump preceding him about using the Philippines as a base area, I guess you could say, to borrow some terminology, for troops once more.
[01:07:45]  And, you know, obviously there's been a lot of joint exercises between the U.S. Army or U.S. military, various branches of the U.S. military and the Armed Force of the Philippines.
[01:07:54]  But that seems to be increasing at a pretty big pace.
[01:07:57]  You know, can you shed any insight on that?
[01:08:00]  It's because of China, because of the power, the growth of China as a powerful country.
[01:08:09]  And that is something that the U.S. is afraid of.
[01:08:14]  And the Philippines is a perfect, geographically, the Philippines is in a perfect position for them to use the Philippines as a launching pad.
[01:08:25]  And that's why it has become important for them to put U.S. bases, to increase the number of U.S. bases in the Philippines, which was overthrown in 1992 when the U.S. bases were thrown out of the Philippines.
[01:08:40]  And they've come back little by little, first through the back door, but now openly coming in.
[01:08:46]  And for a while, secretly, they would have camps in the Philippines, but now open bases and strategically placed where it faces China and it faces Taiwan.
[01:08:59]  So you can see the aim of the United States towards China.
[01:09:04]  And unfortunately, because part of the whole domination of U.S. imperialism, Marcos Jr. allows everything.
[01:09:14]  He doesn't even stop it.
[01:09:17]  And then what Duterte on the other hand was so pro-China.
[01:09:22]  So, see, that's the so many enemies to fight against.
[01:09:30]  You know, I guess my last question would be: where do you see the future going for the movement that you're a part of and that you've been a part of for most of your life?
[01:09:42]  You know, we're here in Brussels at the IPT, this tribunal.
[01:09:50]  You know, and what we're going over over the next couple days are, you know, we're going to hear testimony from victims and witnesses and essentially put the Marcos and Duterte governments on trial.
[01:10:03]  You know, you've been in this fight a long time.
[01:10:07]  I know that you've been working towards the goal of national democracy for decades and decades and decades and decades.
[01:10:15]  You know, what is your outlook towards the future, I guess?
[01:10:19]  I am full of optimism for the future.
[01:10:22]  I see young people committed and People, when Joma Sison passed away, they thought now the movement's gone.
[01:10:32]  And we've suffered a lot of losses the past years.
[01:10:37]  Many of our leaders, our big, our great leaders, were killed and or they were sick and still they were killed by the military.
[01:10:48]  And so people thought, oh, now the movement's getting very weak.
[01:10:52]  But that's not true.
[01:10:53]  Because the new leadership that has come up has proven to be very capable and they inspire the people who are in the movement.
[01:11:06]  And I'm also optimistic not only for the Philippines, but for the rest of the world.
[01:11:13]  You know what's happening in Gaza now?

=== Turning Point in Gaza (03:29) ===

[01:11:16]  It's a turning point.
[01:11:19]  It's never going to be the same again.
[01:11:22]  As somebody said on Facebook, they tried to kill the Palestine and the world has become Palestine.
[01:11:29]  The kind of resistance the students in the United States, followed by down the students in Europe, in other parts of the world, that's really something.
[01:11:41]  The student movement has been dead for a long time.
[01:11:44]  Oh, yeah.
[01:11:44]  And suddenly it reminds me of the Vietnam War.
[01:11:47]  So we'll come to a turning point.
[01:11:50]  So I think I'm very, very optimistic for the world and for the Philippines.
[01:11:58]  And I remember Joma Sison used to say one more decade and it'll all like rise up again, the militants and the activism.
[01:12:11]  And I think he's right.
[01:12:13]  He was saying that several years ago.
[01:12:16]  And he never, of course, thought that this would happen.
[01:12:18]  But it is so many young people today.
[01:12:22]  You know, I'll tell you, in the Netherlands, they don't strike.
[01:12:26]  They are seldom.
[01:12:28]  They're not a political country, not like Belgium, not like France, not like Germany.
[01:12:34]  And now the students are out there in different universities in at least five that I can immediately name.
[01:12:41]  Unbelievable.
[01:12:44]  So for me, I'm full of optimism.
[01:12:46]  Well, Connie, thank you so much for indulging me in this interview.
[01:12:50]  It has been a pleasure.
[01:12:52]  Yeah, and I will see you for the next few days.
[01:12:57]  Well, I hope people have suffered through me trying to use the word convent and then actually saying nunnery.
[01:13:15]  You can say nunnery.
[01:13:17]  I know, or nunhood.
[01:13:18]  I think I refer to being a nun as the nunhood.
[01:13:23]  Oh, nunhood.
[01:13:24]  like a priesthood yeah well because Connie's also could be the hood like the nun you know the habit Sister Act 2.
[01:13:30]  Yeah.
[01:13:31]  Sister Act was filmed by the church near where I grew up.
[01:13:35]  Really?
[01:13:36]  Oh, yeah.
[01:13:36]  And when I remember when Sister Act was being filmed, and it was like St. I think it's St. Paul's, maybe it's St. Peter's, on Church Street.
[01:13:46]  It was a huge church.
[01:13:49]  And we had come back from living abroad and the whole neighborhood was like graffitied up because remember in Sister Act is like, oh, the crazy bad neighborhood.
[01:13:59]  And like, they have like all the prostitutes hanging out.
[01:14:02]  And like Woody Goldberg's like, I gotta clean up the, you know, whatever.
[01:14:05]  So, but we didn't know it was a movie set.
[01:14:08]  Yeah.
[01:14:08]  And so my family was like, what happened while we were gone?
[01:14:12]  When we got San Francisco, it's turned into Tucker Carlson's Nightmare.
[01:14:16]  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:14:17]  But then it was like, ah, damn, we got whoopee.
[01:14:20]  It was a total whoopee move.
[01:14:22]  I remember seeing when they were filming Pursuit of Happiness, I remember seeing what's his name?
[01:14:26]  Runner up.
[01:14:26]  I remember that shit.
[01:14:28]  Like, no one really saw that because they're like, why is it spelled that way?
[01:14:31]  I know, I didn't like that.
[01:14:33]  Thank you for joining us on this little adventure.
[01:14:36]  My name is Bryce.
[01:14:37]  I'm Liz.
[01:14:39]  We're, of course, joined by producer Yank Chomsky.
[01:14:42]  And the podcast is Truanon.
[01:14:45]  Walloo.