Kaa Byington
"I wish to nominate the National
Citizens Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) in the Philippines for the Nobel
Peace Prize. NAMFREL, founded in 1983 by a group of private
citizens, was instrumental in ensuring a peaceful transition from dictatorship
to democracy in the 1986 Philippine presidential elections . . . NAMFREL has set a standard for all nations, showing how a few people can change
the world for the better.
--Richard Kessler, Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, Washington D. C.
(One of six nominations)
"Across
the Philippines on Election Day, the lame, the halt, the hungry and even the
dying joined the healthy and the well nourished in long queues to vote.
NAMFREL, the civic volunteer force dedicated to protecting the honesty
of the vote, deployed fully half a million sentinels in the front lines, with
moral authority as their only weapon and
with threats, assaults, even murder as their wages. One NAMFREL monitor, a farmer on Panay in the Visayas,
was made to lie flat on the floor while rounds from a high-caliber pistol were
pumped into his head and body. For all
the perils, including a communist boycott, voters and defenders of the vote
appeared in force to show what democracy was all about."
Asiaweek editorial, February 23, 1986, Hong Kong
"If we turned our backs on this,
those who would suffer would be our kids."
--Romeo
Du
In
1521, Ferdinand Magellan, seeking a westward passage to the Spice Islands, made
a landfall on an island that came to be called Cebu, in the central island
group known as the Visayas. The Inhabitants of Cebu, or as they called
it, Sugbu, were friendly and helpful, and Magellan
quickly converted them to Catholicism and to allegiance to a far-off king they
had never heard of. The natives of Mactan, another island across a narrow channel from Cebu,
were not so hospitable. Led by Lapu-Lapu, their chief, they killed Magellan and a number
of his men when they ventured across the channel. The surviving members of Magellan's
expedition left his body on the beach and sailed away, eventually reaching
Spain to become the first to circumnavigate the earth. They also left behind, as a gift to the Rajah
of Cebu, a small wooden figure of the Christ Child.
The Spanish did not return to these
lush green isles for two generations, but when they did, they found the small
carving of the Baby Jesus much treasured by the people of Cebu. Today it is in the cathedral, dressed in
splendid red velvet robes, crowned with
gold and silver, the most famous Santo
in the Philippines, perhaps in all history.
It is the symbol, religious and secular, of the city of Cebu, and the
personal icon of every Cebuano. It is
called "Santo Niño."
Four hundred and fifty years after Magellan landed, a ragtag and bobtail
crew of NAMFREL volunteers took on the goons and guns of one of the most
powerful politicians in the country and the power of the Marcos regime with only
their wits, their prayers and Santo Niño to protect them. A tiny replica of Santo Niño stood on every
ballot box NAMFREL could reach, and every volunteer carried one.
The province of Cebu consists of one
largish island shaped like a stake driven into the heart of the Visasayas, the central islands of the Philippines, and two
groups of smaller ones, both off the north coast. Like most islands in the Philippines, which
are volcanic, the interior of Cebu island is rugged and mountainous, and the
settlements are nearly all on the coast.
Cebu city, which is where Magellan
landed, is at the waist of the island.
Little Mactan island--where a modern jet
airport stands not far from the site of Lapu Lapus's village--is less than a kilometer away from Cebu,
across a magnificent harbor. Cebu is
the second city of the Philippines, after Manila, with a population nearing a
million. It is urban, sophisticated, and international. (Cebu city is Cory Aquino country.)
Almost all of Cebu province,
however, is the political arena of warlord Ramon Durano,
Sr. Durano
delivers the vote, for whomever he wishes.
It will not be for Cory Aquino.
NAMFREL Cebu at least had the luxury of knowing exactly who they were up
against, and exactly how he would behave.
They'd known Durano all their lives.
Ramon Durano
is in his eighties. He wears shorts
tailored to cover a little round belly,
running shoes and a hat reminiscent of a solar topi. He usually carries a bolo. (A machete.) Other than the modest pot belly, there is
little sign of his age. There is only a
streak of white in his hair. He claims
deafness, but it is selective--he can't seem to hear awkward questions, for
instance. He has the face of a cherub
and the smile of an angel. He always has
four or five bodyguards lounging nearby, more if he is in his home compound,
where they multiply geometrically.
The city of Danao,
an hour by bus from Cebu city, is Durano's capital,
the heart of his empire. Here he built
an industrial park: a cement plant, a sugar mill, and an automobile assembly
plant. All failed, but not before all of
Danao had been paved.
There is even a customs house. He
owns or controls much land and the people who live on it. He started in the warlord business right
after World War II, and, he points out, his assets were in place long before
Ferdinand Marcos came to power. "I
am not a crony," he says. Durano was in Congress for many years, and a son was in the
Batasan. (Marcos's tame parliament, elected in 1984.)
Durano keeps his connection to Manila, but "Duranoland"
belongs to Durano, and no one else. As they say in Cebu city: "Marcos was beholden to Durano, not vice versa."
Durano
doesn't get out much anymore. Often he
stays in his home compound, a former
seaside resort, barricaded on all sides.
There is a huge pile of sand on the ocean side of the compound. This is to prevent a hand grenade being
lobbed in. There is also a helicopter
pad. Durano's
other favorite hangout is his bakery up the road, where he holds court every
day. The people go there to beg favors,
most of which he grants. His hand is
then kissed. Durano's
people are very, very poor, and his favors are very very
humble.
Across from the bakery in a cluster
of small whitewashed wooden buildings, with a tree lined walkway leading to it,
you will suddenly find Ramon Durano. He will be sitting under an acacia, seemingly
enjoying the fruits of his philanthropy, for to his right is his orphanage (16
orphans) with two uniformed attendants holding two adorable little kids,
sitting on the porch. To his right, on
the verandah of the old folks home (24
women) are a merry group of helpers and two very old ladies. It
cannot be coincidence that Ramon Durano is sitting there.
There are no coincidences in Duranoland.
Durano
loves to be interviewed, but he speaks only of the things he wishes to speak
of. He says tourists come up to Danao, asking to see the warlord. "I like the lord, but not the war. They call me a kingpin, also. I like the king because you live forever--in
England they say long live the
king!--and I like the pin because they can't pin me down."
"They say that people fear me
because I am cruel and have a private army.
My political opponents made that up and I am grateful. It made me very popular."
As he speaks, one of his
"people" comes up to him and speaks politely in Cebuano, the local language. Durano nods
assent. The man goes off and returns
carrying a coffin for a small child on
his shoulder. He kneels in front of Durano and then walks off.
"My people love me. They respect me. Sometimes they kiss my
hand. I serve them from cradle to
grave. They love me." So Durano explains
to his foreign visitor.
Jake Marquez is a good looking,
articulate young businessman totally devoted to what is now his full time
job--NAMFREL provincial chairman for Cebu province. In a movie, he would be cast as the hard
driving city editor of the crusading newspaper.
Jake Marquez came to Cebu from Davao a few years ago, and there had been
criticism from the crony press that the
new head of NAMFREL was a carpetbagger.
But no native Cebuano could love Cebu as much as Jake Marquez. You can hear it in his voice.
Jake joined NAMFREL for all the
usual reasons: his belief in democracy, his desire for free
elections, and his hope that the ballot instead of the bullet could decide the
fate of the country.
In 1984, the election in Cebu had
been disastrous. A crowd demanding to
know correct election returns had been fired upon by troops, and many were
killed. NAMFREL had not been very well
organized. After the election, NAMFREL
itself had become divided and the entire board had resigned in protest. It was finally resolved when Cardinal Vidal
volunteered to be regional chairman.
Thereafter Jake Marquez became provincial chairman and NAMFREL
organized with a vengeance. But "organize" isn't the right
word. What Jake Marquez and NAMFREL did
was mobilize, exactly as if they were going to war. And their battle standard was Santo Niño.
Cebu City was relatively easy. Durano did not have
the power there that he had in the province.
In the election, the Cebu suburb of Mandaue
became NAMFREL's standard of excellence: there they
had 100 percent coverage of the precinct, no violence, and less than a thousand difference in the vote count
between COMELEC (the official Marcos controlled election
commission--famous for turning out fraudulent vote tallies ) and NAMFREL
tabulations.
Because
many men could not volunteer for NAMFREL and keep their day jobs, Jake and his
initial cadre developed the Women's Corps, which became the heart and in many
cases, the brain, of the organization.
At first they worked in headquarters, handling walk-ins, but later they
went out to the municipalities, acting as liaison. And it was the Women's Corps which came up
with the idea of the support groups, volunteers from the city who would guard
the polls where NAMFREL could not or would not organize. And the women became a big part of the
support groups themselves.
NAMFREL began by sending organizers
into Durano territory. Parts of it are controlled by Durano's sons and daughters. Just as the women formed NAMFREL's
hard-core believers, do did the Durano
daughters. They are tough. Like their father's, their territory is
impenetrable. The sons are less
implacable. Several have expressed a
wish to rid themselves of the family reputation, but cannot leave the clan
while the old man is alive. In their
territory, it was a bit safer to be NAMFREL. But not much.
But it was into the son's territories that NAMFREL sent organizers.
Marilu Chiongbin, a calm middle-aged woman with a wicked twinkle
in her eye, was a NAMFREL stalwart from the beginning. "We really know our warlords here. In
1984 we exchanged notes with the NAMFREL volunteers from Makati. (A wealthy
Manila suburb where the mayor's goons had literally driven the NAMFREL
volunteers out of the area.) They were
so surprised when they learned that we KNEW we were going to meet the
goons. They were caught unawares in
Metro Manila. They thought the goons would never do anything in the presence of
foreign journalists. We know
better. We go through it in every
election."
Communication was, here as
everywhere, the name of the game. The
radio net had to be set up early, so a week before the election, the radio
experts quietly slipped all over the island, putting up antennas in rectories
and other safe places. These in turn
were linked to vehicles which would be used in the support groups, which were
themselves linked to easily hidden hand-held radios.
There was another network that had
to be organized, and so it was by Tony Losada, who is
heavy equipment manager of a construction company. Tony was in charge of some smaller equipment:
the couriers, motorcyclists, who would bring the election results into Cebu
city to be counted. The last election
had been disastrous to many couriers.
Going past Durano's capital, Danao, they'd been waylaid by thugs who stripped them to
their underwear and threw their motorcycles into the sea. Their motorcycles were all they owned. This time Tony Losada
was able to reassure them. NAMFREL guaranteed that it would know at all times
where they were. They would never be
alone and there would be hiding places already picked out along their routes so
that they could disappear safely. They
would be on a timetable. A Radio Club
would be manning cars placed at strategic points, and would radio to Cebu when
the couriers passed. If they did not pass the next parked car at the correct
time, help would go out immediately.
About 300 motorcyclists volunteered.
But only the best were sent to the critical areas, the really dangerous
places, like Danao.
"I chose the best drivers, meaning the race drivers," says
Tony. "They are nationally rated.
They can run those bikes up
the coconut trees. Which means they ride without lights and just
go. They told me later that sometimes
they felt that something was coming behind them and without thinking, let
the bike jump off the road, not knowing
where they were going to land."
And then there were the airstrips,
two of them. If the courier couldn't
make it to Cebu through Durano country, he might make
it to one of the airstrips. But if Durano learned about the airstrips, they could be easily
barricaded. The airstrips took a lot of
planning and a lot of nerve. And only a
handful of people knew about them.
And there was an "Operation
Quick Count"--where NAMFREL would count the votes and post the results for
all to see--in the gym at San Carlos University.
When all the plans had been laid for
the communications and the support groups and the couriers, NAMFREL gave each
of its volunteers a kit. The kit
contained a ball pen, three armbands, candles, matches, ID's
and in the case of the chapter kits, a camera.
And all contained a tiny replica of the Santo Niño. Before this, NAMFREL had circulated pledges--I will work to make this a clean and honest
election. The pledges were to Santo
Niño. There was to be a Santo Niño on every
ballot box, and when the voters saw it, they would remember their pledge.
NAMFREL made up 5000 kits, thinking that would be one per volunteer. But when
they counted after the election, there were 13,000 volunteers on the rolls.
The
capital of Durano land, Danao,
lies athwart the highway going north from Cebu City, and beyond it are
important and populous towns, such as Catmon and Bogo. Early on the
morning of Election Day, February 7th,
1986, the NAMFREL support group started up this road, carrying Santo Niño into
battle. There were nearly 400 of them,
marching as to war. They had 30 buses,
cars, jeeps and trucks, and everything they could possibly need: gasoline, flashlights, radios, spare tires,
spare parts, food, water, blankets, first aid kits, candles. In the lead was a heavy truck with colorful
brooms tied to its front bumper, adding an incongruous note of gaiety. The brooms were to sweep tacks and nails off
the road.
Their ostensible mission was to get to
Danao to reinforce the handful of courageous NAMFREL
volunteers at the precincts, but there was an even more vital purpose: to open
the road and keep it open long enough for support groups going further up the
road to get through. And there was a
very reasonable doubt that they could accomplish either of these missions. For Ramon Durano
was going to do everything in his considerable power to keep NAMFREL away from
the precincts of Duranoland. He had already made his intentions very
clear. In the international press he was
pictured in his shorts, holding his bolo, standing in front of a sandbag
barricade. Beside him was a sign: No Communists Wanted Here. He was quoted as saying, "Now we will
see if NAMFREL can win."
Ramon Durano
is very serious about Communists. But
his definition is somewhat different from most people's. For instance, the New People's Army, who are real communists, and who share the
hills with Durano's goons do not quite fit the
definition. "They do not kill my
people, because my people have guns in their houses," says Durano. But Corazon
Aquino is a communist, and so are her advisors.
And NAMFREL is opposition, and therefore they are communists. "If Mrs. Aquino wins, God help our
country. There will be many communist
killings. I will accept it. If they shoot me, I accept the way I
die." It is easy to understand why Durano felt very strongly that NAMFREL must be kept at
bay. So he began keeping NAMFREL out
before they even started down the road.
The support group was divided into
two--an advance party and the main body--and then further subdivided into teams
destined for various towns along the road. Each team had all the necessary
personnel: a radioman, a mechanic, a
photographer. Among others in the
advance party were Jake Marquez and Domingo Juan, who was in charge of the
entire support group. The plan was for
the advance party to leave Cebu at 3 a.m., but before their vehicles could even move, the military
surrounded them and took them to a military camp where they were interrogated
at length as to their intentions. How
many people? How many vehicles? What is your purpose? And then the military told them they were too
large a group, that they would be allowed to go up the road only two or three
vehicles at a time.
After
the military delayed them an hour or more, what was to have been a convoy
trickled down the road in bits and pieces.
This was good psychology on the part of the military--the support group
was now strung out and nervous. However,
they had with them some people whose presence should have guaranteed their
safety. These were two members of the
American Observer team, appointed by Ronald Reagan, and headed by Senator
Richard Lugar. One was Representative
Jerry Lewis of Los Angeles, and the other was the Archbishop of Wisconsin. Also with them were a number of foreign
correspondents.
Waiting anxiously in Danao, a city of nearly 50,000 people, were the local
NAMFREL volunteers. At the beginning,
eight had come forward, but now, when push had come to shove, the number had
dwindled to three brave souls feeling very alone in the Danao
parish church. Two of them were women
who spent most of their time in Cebu City, and the third was Leonardo Capitan,
father of four, who was determine to lay down his life, if necessary, for the
freedom of the vote. He would be very
happy to see the 285 NAMFREL volunteers who would be reinforcing him.
Ramon Durano,
Sr., ordinarily, loves America and Americans.
At the age of twelve, he claims, he got into trouble with his teachers
for singing the "Star Spangled Banner" in school instead of whatever
it was they were supposed to sing in colonial times. He graduated from the University of the
Philippines and UP Law School at a time when all or most of the faculty were
American. He also keeps some of his
money in America. In his home compound
is a ten-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty, complete with "Give me
your tired, your poor" lettered large on the base. But
today, Election Day, 1986, Ramon Durano did
not intend to welcome the American observers--even though they were Ronald
Reagan's chosen--to Danao. Even though they were probably unaware that
they were in the company of communists.
The NAMFREL groups finally arrived
at 6:30, having escaped the military at one end, and run into it again at the
other. Near Danao
combat ready soldiers stopped them, searched the vehicles and then let them go on their
way. In order to get into the polls, NAMFREL's credentials had to be okayed by the local
registrar of voters. NAMFREL was not
totally surprised when this did not occur, but everyone was dumbfounded when the registrar refused to
let the American observers in.
Says Domingo Juan, "He just
said, your IDs are no good. These were
national IDs signed by the chairman of the Election Commission in Manila. They were guests of the government. It was astonishing."
That left everybody milling around
in front of the registrar's office.
Leonardo Capitan, Danao's sole resident
NAMFREL volunteer recognized the observers and journalists for what they were
and knew that Durano had won. He broke out of the crowd and collared
Representative Lewis and a New York Times
correspondent and began to spill the beans.
"I told them about past elections in Danao," he says. "I disclosed to them the
election irregularities, which have continued to exist in our place since
1949--like vote buying, terrorism and fraud.
After I was through with my litany about the Duranos,
my wife and two of my children came up to me and told me in secret that I had
better leave Danao immediately, as Durano's spies had heard all that, and already his goons
were looking for me. I thanked God for
the warning, and I asked my wife to pack some things for me. Then I told the foreign observers that my
life was threatened, and that I was leaving but that first I wanted to
vote. They said that they would help me
in that endeavor, and to stay close to them, for there I would be safe.
"Several of them escorted me to
the voting center. Inside I saw an amazingly large number of people just
standing, doing nothing. This was part
of their systematic plan to disenfranchise supporters of Cory Aquino, of which
there were many in Danao. The purpose was to force them to wait for a
number of hours until they lost interest in voting. At least my failure to vote showed the
foreign observers what was going on. I
saw several of them shake their heads in disgust. When NAMFREL pulled out, I went with them for
obvious reasons."
At first the NAMFREL support group
decided to try to pollwatch from outside the
precincts, hoping a count of whoever went in might help keep the election
honest. But armed men began moving in on
them, snatching cameras, and making intimidating gestures. There was nothing for Domingo Juan to do but
radio to Cebu headquarters that they were pulling out. It was a discouraged group that retraced
their steps back to the city. But
Domingo Juan had the satisfaction of knowing that he had kept the road north
open long enough for the teams to get through to the towns where they were
desperately needed.
Representative
Lewis, a member of the Lugar observation team, stated that the election in Danao appeared orderly and peaceful to him. He failed to mention that the team had not
been allowed to observe the vote, and of course, he didn't stay around for the
counting. When the returns were
reported, Danao had gone 99.2 percent for Marcos, .8
percent for Aquino. That was, however,
not nearly as astonishing as the turnout. While the national average in this election
was 75%, which did not include the estimated 15% who had been disenfranchised
by registrars' trick-playing with the voters rolls, Danao
had a turnout 125% of its resident population.
Ramon Durano
isn't in the least apologetic about these amazing figures. "I had nothing to do with it. I did not campaign in this election. The mayors came to me and we talked about it. Those figures are believe it or not. You can believe it or not, but they are
proven on paper."
"But," says a visitor,
"don't you think 99% looks funny?
Couldn't you have told the mayors to make it 75%?"
Ramon Durano
laughs and laughs. "I am retiring
from politics. I am too old. I have been in politics 60 years."
Compared to much of Cebu province,
the voting in Danao was peaceful and orderly. At Tabogan, north
of Danao on the highway, says one who was there,
"We expected to be there at 8:30, but we arrived after lunch because Durano blocked us at Danao. At least when we reached Tabogan
we were prepared. Some of us were crying
because we had never been harassed by armed men before. But as soon as we arrived people felt more at
ease, and we all knelt outside the precincts and started to pray before the
Santo Niño image, while the pollwatchers stayed
inside the precincts. In Tabogan, the parish priest, who was NAMFREL, had received
death threats, and he was surrounded by armed men, friends who promised to
protect him. So everyone was staying
close to the priest and the armed guards, while goons roamed around the
area. But the prayer and the protection
worked--the voting went well."
Further north, in Bogo, a town controlled by a Durano
son, Domingo, the American observer team rolled in, accompanied by the American
consul from Cebu. There was a village
here that had become a causus belli. A man named Martinez who was a
native here was determined there would be an honest election. A policeman loyal to Martinez was guarding
the ballot boxes, watched by the observer team, when in rolled Domingo Durano with three truckloads of goons. Guns were drawn on both sides and the
observers stood gaping in the middle.
Domingo had often gone jogging with the Consul General. So, as the NAMFREL people tell it, the two
got together and there was a Mexican stand-off until both sides faded into the
woods. At four in the afternoon, the
observers left, having failed to notice anything out of the ordinary. "Peaceful and orderly" reported
Representative Lewis once again.
That evening, however, it was time
to get the returns in safely to Cebu city.
Mrs. Martinez, wife of the man who had started the whole thing, heard
that Durano's men were coming again, this time to
snatch the ballot boxes, which she was taking to be canvassed at the municipal
hall. She saw them coming, and ordered
her jeep pulled across the road. Wearing
a bullet proof vest, she jumped out.
There was another Mexican stand-off when Durano's
men spotted her. While the two sides
stood glaring at each other, guns drawn, the people, watching from the side of
the road, jumped on the ballot boxes and took them to safety.
NAMFREL Cebu's favorite story of derring do, occurred in a remote mountain village, near Bogo, so remote that it had no electricity. The heroine is Doctora
Onate, small, neat and very
articulate--a psychiatrist. One of her
contributions to NAMFREL was a profile of the mentality of a warlord. She was also in charge of the NAMFREL
volunteers in the village.
"I told my people that after
dark at 6:00, I would flash my flashlight if there was trouble. The counting was still going on, and then we
heard a noise, of someone coming up the road.
I sent a local boy to run and see what was going on, and he came back
stammering and very nervous. 'It's a DSM truck!' DSM is Durano Sugar
Mills.
"I told all my volunteers to go
up on the mountain, that I would handle it, and I took my small yellow
Volkswagen and blocked the road. I was
all alone. When the DSM truck, a 6 by 6,
arrived, it was full of masked uniformed men.
I threw my hands up and said, 'Surrender, surrender, NAMFREL Cebu, I am Doctora Onate, psychiatrist.'
"They stopped about three feet
from my car. They got down. They did not have name tags. They wore fatigue uniforms, and they had long
arms. I asked innocently, 'How come you
are wearing masks?' Their commander
said, 'Well, you know it is very dusty on this road.'
Meanwhile, my people who were hiding
up in the woods saw me surrounded by men with long arms and they were sure that
it was the end of me. At last the
commander of the troops said, 'We are here
to take the ballot boxes.'
"I said, 'Good, you can help us
take them.'"
Doctora
Onate grins. "So we had a military
escort to Bogo."
Here Jake Marquez jumps in, because
everyone relishes this psychiatrist story. "When they stopped us in the
Manila airport, after the election, when we were bringing in the returns, she
said, 'Psychiatrist', the magic word,
and they let us through. It's just
amazing."
Catmon is
a rather ordinary town on the sea a score of kilometers north of Danao. The NAMFREL
volunteers in Catmon will never ever forget what happened to them there. Here is
the story through the words of Fay Marie and Romeo Du, husband and wife,
from Cebu city.
Fay Marie: "We did not get
there until late in the morning. At about 1:30 p.m., one of our volunteers
noticed that there was vote buying going on in the store in front of the
school. So, pretending to be a local he
went to the store and bought something, and then hid in the comfort room. There was a man passing out 20 or 25 pesos. Although the guy in the comfort room had a
camera, he couldn't use it. The peephole
wasn't big enough."
Romeo: "I went and bought
cigarettes at another store where rumor had it that the goons were stationed in
the back. I asked whether they were
selling Marlboros, and then I asked if they were selling armalites
(M-16s). When I was about to leave, a man in the back said, 'When you are fired
upon, you will dive for cover just like everyone else.'
"At around 2:30, while we were
at the voting center, a white VW with three people in it arrived. The looks of these men were that of military
personnel and each carried a clutch bag.
(N.B. Small leather clutch bags
carried under the arm are the rule for hiding your handgun.) When we approached, they took off in the
direction of Danao.
At about 3 p.m. a brown Lancer without license plates arrived. One of our volunteers approached it. The
people in the Lancer were carrying long arms with grenade launchers. Rumor had it that they were here to take the
ballots, so we grabbed them to take them to safety, but as we did, the Lancer
drove off.
"The counting began, and at
about 6 p.m., as it was getting dark, a guy on a motorcycle came up and asked
who won the election. The registrar of
voters said, "We lost." The
man on the motorcycle, who was a town official said, 'Now we've lost all our
money. It was NAMFREL who did it.' Five minutes after the man on the motorcycle
left, a green Tamaraw (an SUV) pulled in.
"I was facing the precinct, but
I heard the loud roar of the vehicle, so I turned and saw that there were six
people in it. Then we heard three shots
fired in succession, followed by rapid automatic fire. All you could see was the light at the tip of
the barrel of the guns, but you could not tell if the shot was in your
direction or up in the air. After the
strafing we were still lying prone, while the local people were getting up and
dusting off their pants and going home.
They were used to it, evidently, but we were rattled.
“The first thing I did was to see if
my wife was OK, and then I checked to see if the other volunteers were all
right. I told them all to get inside the precincts. The man in charge of the precincts was taking
so long to sign everything. I asked him
to hurry up because of the strafing, but he just said, 'That's OK' and went on
at a snail's pace. I told one NAMFREL
nun that it was too dangerous, and we should not risk our lives for a thing as
small as a ballot. But the nun said that
our main purpose was to get the ballots and ensure the election returns, and
that we were doing it for future generations.
I felt guilty knowing that if we turned our backs on this, those who
would suffer were our kids. So I told
everyone that we were to bring in the ballots and the results."
Fay Marie: "When I touched the ground during the
strafing, I first thought about my kids and who was going to take care of them
in case something happened to us. Since
we were already there, we might as well finish what we started. And during the counting, you could tell we
made a difference, because the ballots in the ballot boxes were layered by
time. The ones on the bottom, before we
got there in the morning were all for Marcos.
Then there was a long stretch of ballots almost entirely for Cory--after
we got there. Cory won by two votes in
one precinct and eight votes in the other.
So we felt we did something, no matter how small.
"At 7 o'clock, we were through,
and we had the problem of getting out of Catmon. We wanted to go home, but the townspeople
warned us not to, because a lot of goons were waiting for us at the municipal
hall. Father Iriarte,
the rector of the church advised us to stay there for the night, as he also
thought it was too dangerous to try to go home."
The NAMFREL contingent stayed in the church, They listened to election returns on the
radio, and after dinner they went outside to chat in the minipark
in front. A jeep roared up with four people in it, two
of them with long guns. The NAMFREL
volunteers quickly went back inside. The
local people told them that the goons in town were thinking of attacking
them to get the photographs and other
evidence of fraud NAMFREL had collected.
From the church, they could see
the municipal hall, and it was full of
milling goons. No one slept that
night. In the morning, they called for
a military escort to take them out of Catmon.
Faye
Marie: "When we got back we skipped
the big welcome at San Carlos gym. We didn't need the recognition, because we
knew that we did help. Deep inside, we
were more contented just to know we did it."
Perhaps the most dangerous job, the
job for which you were most likely to be dropped by your life insurance
company, was that of the couriers, the men who brought the results in to
Cebu. They had been carefully deployed
the day before. They had special
armbands to identify them: OQC COURIER,
and these were not released until the day before the election so that they
could not be faked. The couriers would
remain out of sight until after the voting was over, and then they would go to
the mountain villages. Each had a backrider who was a local who could make sure he did not
get off the path.
Each rider had to do more than ride
a bike. They had to know everything
there was to know about returns and what they should look like and what
signatures should be on them They were
on a carefully planned time schedule, so that returns would come in smoothly
and in the right proportion. Fifty
percent of the island's returns were to be in Cebu city by 10 p.m. Each courier had a carefully worked out plan.
A rider would pick up the returns at the precincts and take them to the municipal hall. The courier at municipal hall would collect
the precinct returns and take all of them together to a designated area
courier, who would in turn bring in all the
combined area returns. All along
the way the NAMFREL radio net reported on their whereabouts. Teams with doctors, lawyers and security
people waited to go out at a moment's notice to the rescue.
Having survived the trip, one rider
would bring all returns for one area to the Operation Quick Count in the
University of San Carlos gymnasium. When
they arrived, dusty, muddy, exhausted, the workers in the gym would give them a
standing ovation. Sometimes these tough guys cried at that.
But that was the plan for only about
65% of the island, the southern part where they did not expect attacks on the
couriers. The other 45% was deep Duranoland, and there were different plans for that. Oh, it would appear to be the same, to anyone
watching (and there were plenty doing that) but it was a clever ruse. NAMFREL, after all, had secretly secured two
airfields, one at Medellin at the northern tip of Cebu island, and one at
Asturias, across the mountain spine from Danao. When the time came to deliver the returns to
Cebu city, the goons would see the couriers headed south toward the city. They would not notice the couriers headed
north or west, the ones with the real
election returns. Because it was impossible to assure that the radio net was
not infiltrated, these couriers had their orders given to them before they
left, and were out of radio contact thereafter.
They did not know their returns would be picked up by plane. Only a few people at Asturias and Medellin
knew that.
"One guy was unaccounted for for ten hours," says Tony Losada. "Finally we found him He was going all over the mountain, trailing,
because he couldn't use the road. We
directed him to go to Bogo. We got a message in the middle of the night
from our radio man there, Bony Cabarrus (a renowned doctor, former president of
Philippine Airlines and the conductor of the Cebu symphony to boot). The message was, 'We are surrounded, they are
banging on the door, and we can't get out.'
They were in the church. Hours
later we got the military there to drive off the goons."
The couriers were gathered in the Bogo and Asturias rectories where they spent the night. The returns they'd brought in would go to the
airfields. The one at Asturias was relatively
safe. It was on the plantation of Victor
and Marilu Chiongban, who
was head of all the NAMFREL support groups.
But Medellin was different. The
airstrip was on a sugar plantation owned by one of the Duranos,
but the company was divided, politically. So Tony Losada
contacted but one person there, and asked him to do only one thing: secure the exit so that the people who went
in with the returns could get back out.
It had to be very quietly done, for if word leaked out, a single person
could close down the airstrip simply by driving a car or a tractor on it.
The plane came in early in the
morning of the 8th, the day after the election.
Three or four days before, the pilot of the plane had met the people who
were to give him the precious returns.
In addition, there was a password, known only to one person at each
airstrip. At Asturias, Marilu Chiongban gave the results
and the password to the plane which stopped only a moment and then roared
away. She says she never felt so proud
or so silly at this high drama in her life.
The plane swung over to Medellin where the pickup was also successful,
and then on to Cebu city, where the OQC was waiting for the results. Some of
the motorcycle riders did not learn until the next day why they had been sent
to Asturias and Bogo.
And the result of all this? Cebu NAMFREL considers itself a success. You have to remember that they were up
against Durano, not just the Marcos machine and the military, as everyone else
was. In the province, Marcos got 53% of
the vote. In the city of Cebu, the
nationwide scrambling of the voter's registration lists disenfranchised a full
20% of the voters, but Cory Aquino still got 73% of the votes. NAMFREL was able to cover 83% of the precincts. That was an enviable feat in itself,
considering what those precincts were like.
The score: Santo Niño 3, Durano and friends, 2.
How
did the NAMFREL volunteers themselves
feel about it all? Remember Fay Marie
Du, who was at Catmon? She was threatened by goons and strafed, and
then spent a night in terror in the church as armed men blocked her way home
and planned to attack. Would Fay Marie
Du volunteer for NAMFREL again? "Of course I would. Next time I'll be more prepared."
Cebu
was only one of 91 electoral districts in the country, and it was far
from the worst. All over the country,
the Marcos machine used goons, guns and gold to buy, intimidate, terrorize and
even murder voters. (NAMFREL itself had
two dead and 169 injured.) On the day that Marcos fled the country in a US helicopter, three
weeks after the election, NAMFREL came out with a report. Fraud and violence had been so widespread
that 59% of the electoral district
elections were judged "abusive."
At least 15% of the voters had
been disenfranchised, and NAMFREL itself had been thrown out of 15% of the precincts, and had
been unable to get poll watchers into another 15%. But in spite of everything,
Cory Aquino had won the election, by a million votes--far less than she would
have gotten had the election been fair and fraud free. But at least NAMFREL could honestly say that
the people's choice was now the President of the Philippines. Marcos was gone, after 14 long years of dictatorship and martial law.
Ronald
Reagan's handpicked observation team
went home right after the election.
The only public statement of the
Lugar commission was: "We applaud
the passionate commitment of Filipinos to democracy. They have been involved in a vigorous
campaign characterized by lively debate, enormous crowds and the mobilization
of NAMFREL to monitor the election. We
have seen concrete examples both in voting and counting ballots of success in
the administration of the voting process.
Sadly, however, we have witnessed and heard disturbing reports of
efforts to undermine the integrity of that process . . ."
One
member, of the Lugar Commission, Ben Wattenberg, wrote in the Wall Street
journal, "At the grass roots level, all of us heard rumors about
harassment, intimidation and bribery.
However it was actually hard to find much skullduggery that could be
documented. To the best of my knowledge,
none of the observers saw any actual violence. In free countries like the US,
the press can be trusted to give a full portrait of what is going on. In the
Philippines, the portrayal of the election in this one-sided manner convinced
the American public that the election was nothing more than goons run
amok. The press only got half the
story--fraud. They missed the other
half: a free culture, a mildly free election."
See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.