KNOWING NINOY AQUINO

By Mauro Gia Samonte

Part 3

The Dante Cookie

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            Friend and kumpadre Diego Cagahastian,  News Editor of the Manila Bulletin, came to see us shortly after the EDSA 1 to break the news that our common friend, Felix Dalay, had won the contract with Cine Suerte to film the life story of Bernabe Buscayno aka Kumander Dante. Diego suggested that we co-write the screenplay for the film project, a very welcome idea as far as we are concerned. Film assignments had been long in the coming during those days and the opportunity offered some relief from what was virtually a long drought in earnings. More importantly, however,  was the fact that it would truly be a great honor to do the film on the legendary hero who had been in our high esteem since as far back as the late sixties.

            That was 1969. The Age of the Aquarius hadn’t quite begun, and if the Philippines were a volcano, society was just manifesting the early tremors of a full-blown eruption that would take place at the advent of the 70s. All of sudden Kumander Dante was the hero of the hour, landing the pages of newspapers and magazines, and radio and television programs, too.  Our readings thus far on Philippine history had already discredited Rizal as a hero and had as a consequence entrenched in our consciousness the image of Bonifacio as the real hero in the upheavals of 1896. Dante’s bursting into the media had the effect of reinforcing our regard for Bonifacio, for, indeed, Dante was being projected as the Bonifacio of the modern times.

Ride-On in Dante Mania

            At the time, we were editing our second magazine and we took much pride from carrying, too, in our publication an editorial  piece on the young Supremo of the just-organized New People’s Army, together with a photo which we lifted from other publications – the one single photograph of the man that was being published anytime, anywhere during that period. We didn’t know why, but shortly after that issue came out, we found waiting at our office a rather coy pretty lady whom our publisher introduced to us as Juliet Delima.

            We didn’t know Juliet from Adam and she didn’t give us any opportunity to find out anything about her except her name, for a couple of minutes or so after the introduction, she begged leave and went. Only this year, when the  current Commissioner on Human Rights Leila Delima was revealed as a relative of  the wife of CPP founder Jose Maria Sison, have I realized that that coy pretty lady introduced to us at our editorial office in 1969 as Juliet Delima could be the same woman referred to now as wife of the topmost communist in the country.

            Why Juliet went to see us then, we don’t know. And why she rather mysteriously chose to leave after being introduced to us, was the greater mystery, but one which we would no longer bother about.          But the EDSA revolt in February 1986 had resulted in the installation of Cory as president of the nation and among her first acts upon assuming power was the release of top communist leaders Jose Maria Sison and, our hero, Bernabe Buscayno aka Kumander
Dante. Pursuing the opportunity to write Dante’s story on film, Diego and us got an interview with the former NPA chief during which Juliet all of a sudden must come to our mind again. The NPA was an infant armed group in 1969 and it could use all support it could gather. Our play-up of  Dante in our editorial must have impressed upon the wife of the communist party founder that we were a potential sympathizer.

            The interview took place in a well-appointed farm which was placed at our complete  disposal by a friend, who never bothered to ask what the occasion was. That’s one good thing about being a filmmaker. You get to do things which otherwise are sensitive but which are passed off by observers as routine matters.

Scenario of Escape

            Over a simple native lunch, our talk began on a cordial note. We particularly reminisced on an idea hatched up among friends to get him out of detention during one of his morning walks at Camp Crame; the gambit was to make him masquerade as somebody else, complete with a wig, moustache and barong attire. Even before EDSA 1, we were already contemplating to do a movie on Dante’s life, and if the getaway succeeded, it would be a good marketing strategy for the project. Dante was amused by the scenario but thought it was workable.

                Anyway, the meeting turned out to be just exploratory talks. Dante did signal his consent to the movie project we were proposing but didn’t quite make any commitment that he would give such consent to us. It turned out, as early as then, the so-called rift between the RA (reaffirm) and the RJ (rejection), semantics on the ideological differences between the Sison faction and that of those opposing his line in the revolutionary movement, was already underway and our sponsor to Dante happened to be on the anti-Sison camp.

            Diego and us were left out in the cold for the screenplay job.  But when finally the film project was shown, we had  good reason to sigh with relief. The Ricky Lee-written photoplay was a monumental flop. Was it a foreboding of the debacle Dante would meet with in his subsequent run for the senate in 1987? He suffered a monumental  defeat.

            But then, as an old Chinese sot goes, “Nuns sing different tunes in different mountains.” Diego and us would definitely not have  done a Ricky Lee. For us, that interview with Dante had been most enlightening and we would have endeavored to share our enlightenment with the broad masses of the people.

How Sison and Dante Merged

            Dante admitted that he and Sison had not been acquainted with each other prior to a meeting held to join up their efforts at launching a revolution. Their meeting was facilitated by Tarlac Governor Apin Yap.  In that meeting, it was agreed upon  to re-establish a breakaway communist party from the old merger party, the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas- Partido Sosyalista ng Pilipinas, and a new armed group, the New People’s Army (NPA), composed of breakaway guerilla troops from the Hukbalahap. It was as  direct results of this meeting that the Communist Party of the Philippines was established on December 26, 1968 and the New People’s Army (NPA), March 29, 1969, The meeting was held at Hacienda Luisita. Presiding over the meeting was the main broker in the Sison-Dante tandem – Ninoy Aquino.

            These are the true essentials which in our hands would have turned the Dante material into a vehicle for shattering myths in Philippine revolution thereby freeing the minds of the people continuously being fettered by false gods and fake heroes.

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