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INSIDE THE WALLS OF BILIBID
by Leslie Hope
The friends and I ride buses-and then a "tricycle"-to the southern
outskirts of Manila. At the end of a stretch of road, surrounded by an immense
green lawn, a white castle gleams.Mocking the palaces of feudal lords, it
is festooned with parapets and crenalated walls. Restful green and yellow
striped awnings belie the meaning of the black letters etched in peeling
paint above the massive wooden doors:
KAWANIHAN ng nga BILANGGUAN
(DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION)
NEW BILIBID PRISON
Nearby is a boutique, selling sailing ships trapped inside bottles, and
other artifacts crafted by hungry prisoners. It is early May 1995 in the
Philippines, and fans creak as we smooze a succession of pot-bellied bureaucrats.
The price of my admittance is handing over my California driver's license
as hostage, and receiving a pat-down.
Our hands are stamped with a purple ink blot, and we pass through an iron
cage-directly into a throng of prisoners selling balsa jewelry boxes, carved
animals, and religious icons. Inside the huge, sun-hot dirt Yard are several
large cell-blocks and a decrepit "hospital."
A young man escorts us hundreds of steps past food and drink stalls-manned
by "The Syndicate"-to a cell-block in the back, where we are expected
by thirty politically united men imprisoned for "common crimes."
The young man, obviously a stoolie, asks us for money. As we enter the darker
domain of the political prisoners, he holds back and says he will "wait
for us."
Inside the cell-block there are no iron bars, just a big room partitioned
by cardboard and plywood into tiny sleeping cubicles opening into the common
areas. We pass by a ping-pong table and through an opening into the backyard
of the building. It is lunch-time, and we are invited to share our host's
meager portions of rice, fish, and a green vegetable.
As in any prison on the planet, individual survival here is only made possible
by membership in a mutual-aid group. The open ground between the building
and a barbed-wire-topped perimeter wall belongs to our hosts. A crude kitchen
has been constructed, under a tin roof, to cook the prison harvest. Nobody
survives on the thimble of rice and fish water ladled out by the State.
The thin men rely on food donations from friends and family outside the
walls-and upon their own agricultural ingenuity.
In this small, dusty space, they have constructed several six-foot-deep
fish ponds-down to the seeping level of the water table. Carp fingerlings
are raised in shallow pans-so the bigger fish cannot eat them-and, when
they are strong, released into the murky pools of algae.
There are small plots of vegetables and a flock of justifiably paranoid
chickens: prisoners of the prisoners. Nobody is smiling. Eating is deliberate.
Fresh water is served with pride.
Unlike the furtive glances and the frantic pace of the Main Yard, the social
atmosphere here is measured. An invisible line has been crossed. This oasis
beats with the seriousness of the trapped, yearning to walk free, yet committed
to a set of ideals and revolutionary practices in which freedom is defined
as freedom for the Filipino people as a whole.
Our plates are taken and we are escorted into the library of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism.
Only, there are no books in this well-used classroom-they were confiscated,
along with the precious red flag of the students. The single bright spot
in the room is a red hammer and sickle painted on a plywood wall. Someone
suggests that it should be painted on the main gate-let the guards confiscate
that!
We sit on a bench and the comrades silently form a circle in which we are
a part. We are introduced by name as anti-imperialists from the United States
and as supporters of the national democratic liberation struggle of the
Filipino people. One man quickly leaves the room.
There are a few women and babies in the circle-visiting their husbands and
fathers. The right for conjugal visits was not easily won. Without constant
political attention from the outside, these men would have been disappeared
by their captors. The prisoners know the value of outreach.
Each person introduces himself and describes the circumstances of his arrest
and the common crime with which he was charged. Most choose to speak in
one of the national languages, which are translated for us Americans into
English.
Many of the men were picked up in sweeps of the rural areas during genocidal
bombings and raids of barrios deemed to be under the influence of the National
Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the Communist Party of the Philippines
(CPP), and the New People's Army (NPA). If these peasants and workers were
apolitical before their arrests, they are apolitical no longer. Fires smolder
in their eyes.
Some of the comrades were taken prisoner in firefights between the NPA and
the reactionary armies of Ramos, Aquino, Marcos. Instead of being accorded
the rights of political prisoners of war, as theorized by the Treaty of
the Geneva Convention, they were charged with common crimes of murder, arson,
possession of fire-arms. Bail is unavailable. Habeas corpus ignored. Trial
dates protracted. Evidence scarce.
The Ramos regime claims there are no political prisoners in the Philippines.
In fact, there are over 340 political prisoners and ten percent of them
are here in this circle.
Bilibid is the Ramos Hilton of prisons. In the countryside, political prisoners
struggle in even worse conditions and are forced into slave labor. Two million
people are homeless refugees on the plains and hills of the archipelago-driven
from the land by Ramos' land-grabbing Total War Policy in accord with the
low-intensity warfare blueprint of the United States.
The entire population of the Philippines is the "collateral damage"
of a semi-feudal, neo-colonial society deliberately perpetuated in agricultural
and industrial backwardness by multi-national corporate polluters such as
Dole, Del Monte, Nestle, Pepsi Cola Bottling Company, Coca Cola Bottling
Company, Eveready Battery, Kawasaki Steel, Ralston Purina, Nippon Steel,
Seimens Corporation, San Miguel Beer.
Despite the efforts of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund,
GATT/WTO, and other instruments of foreign monopoly capital, to maintain
a de-industrialized Philippines as a pool of "cheap and docile labor,"
the Filipino people have been waging a People's War, steadily surrounding
the cities from the countryside, for twenty-six years.
Our hosts say that they are encouraged by the shape of the on-again, off-again
peace talks between the NDFP and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines
(GRP). One of the goals of the NDFP in waging the peace talks is the release
of all political prisoners. The prisoners remark, however, that the talks
are secondary to winning a complete victory through armed struggle, and
that the government is incapable of meeting the conditions of genuine peace.
As the comrades tell their similar stories, we learn that two of them are
international celebrities. Both are under thirty and severely scarred from
bone-breaking tortures. They were suspected of sanctioning U.S. Army spy
Colonel Rowe in 1988.
Lacking evidence to substantiate this charge, the State has held them for
eight years on lesser charges. U.S. President Clinton appealed last year
to Ramos to stop their due parole, so they remain here. They say they desire
no special attention from international activists. Their slogan is the slogan
of the group: Free ALL Political Prisoners!
A concert is announced and a guitar strums the chords for A Rustling of
Leaves, the beloved Bayan Song of the trapped. An original composition follows
and the singing is low and strong. There is a collective sadness in the
strains of the songs, so comfortingly familiar to the singers. It is a sadness
that has been accepted, born of duty and determination. If freedom is the
recognition of necessity-this circle has been liberated.
The man who left the room before, now returns. With solemn ceremony he presents
each friend from the belly of the beast with a gift. Mine is a plain three
by five inch balsa wood envelope. From within it, I slide a folded balsa
card which has been painted with an emblem. In the foreground is a thatched-roof
house on stilts. Beneath it laps a yellow sea. The sky is red, filled with
a yellow sun-across which moves a wisp of orangish cloud.
Handwritten inside the card is my name and, "We wish you and other
Comrades in the USA success in your work. Long live the unity and solidarity
between the Filipino people and the American people against U.S. imperialism.
MABUHAY KA! -Political Prisoners, NBP Philippines."
I have never received a gift which I treasured more.The card-giver pauses.
All eyes are now upon us. He says, "We have shared our lives with you
and given you these presents in appreciation of the long way you have come
to keep us company. Now. Comrades from the United States. What will you
do for us?"
I spoke my heart then, and I speak it now, months later. "You have
given us much more than these simple gifts. You, soldiers, and you, the
Communist Party of the Philippines, and you, the people of the Philippines,
are showing millions around the world that the destructive backwardness
which afflicts our earth can be consciously changed into its opposite.
"Monopoly capitalism is the root cause of all evil today. The seeds
of the new society are growing in this prison cell. The news of the rectification
of the Communist Party of the Philippines is an inspiration to internationalists
everywhere. Your dedication to living your basic principles-and your striving
to truly integrate with the masses-has brought the Philippine Revolution
from the brink of disaster to the dawn of national liberation and socialism.
Soon, the oppressed will have a socialist state to look towards once again.
"I promise that when you call for solidarity demonstrations at your
jailer's consulate in my city, I will organize anti-imperialists and be
there. I will work to create public opinion for your cause to the best of
my ability. I will learn from the example of your Party, which is showing
the world-in practice-the very meaning of criticism-unity-criticism."
The guitar starts with the notes of that song sung, hummed, and thought
in all languages since the Paris Commune. Tagalog, Cebuano, Bicol, Ilicano,
Visayan, and English mix in organized chaos as our left hands form raised
fists and the firm tempo solidifies our friendship. "Sang Baksa!"
We laugh, shake hands, joke about the possibility of meeting again. They
promise to visit us when we are in prison.
We have been here three hours. The sound of an ancient typewriter echoes
against the plywood-everyone is suddenly busy. On the way out, I notice
a schedule taped to a cement wall. It is a duty-roster written by the prisoners,
who take turns guarding their liberated zone.
In the main room, we have time for one game of ping-pong. We bash the ball
back and forth in yet another universal language-and keep no score.
As we emerge from the political compound, the stoolie tags along behind
me demanding pesos. As we approach the gate, the crowd of hawkers thickens
around us. Desperation fills the air as the "common criminals"
watch ordinary Americans-who "make" more money in one day than
the average Filipino earns in three months-begin to vanish through the prison
bars. They claw at us and beg.
I can do nothing, but leave. I want to tell them that they are political
prisoners, too.
-December 1995