BORDERLESS EARTH AS WE REMEMBER THE 21ST OF SEPTEMBER 1972

By Wilhelmina S. Orozco

When I was in college, it was mod to love our country right or wrong, but it was wrong all the way to love a dictator. This was why when martial law on the 21st of September 1972 was declared, we had known about it already. Why because the law was bandied about as a last resort to quell the group/s that were constantly harping at demonstrations and crying “Ibagsak and Imperialism, Feudalismo at Burukrata Kapitalismo." Unfortunately, no one, not even those in media knew how to counter it when martial law was declared. Marcos arrested people – those in media, his political opponents – those who were potential “destabilizers” of his one man rule. We were shocked by his rule and me, I was just a fencesitter of some sort –looking at the various sceneries unfolding before us.

After a few months, the urban guerrilla forces were created– those who held the pen, and those who hold the guns. People joined secretly the underground movement. I was one of those who had taken time to know what kind of participation I really wanted to take because at that time, I was busy with my two children who were born one after the other in a span of two years. But I valued love of country, of freeing ourselves from the clutches of one-man rule, as I had known then what it was to have lived under a democratic space. And what kind of space was that? A space that allowed us to speak, sing freely and to choose the kind of career we wanted for myself - space in the arts.

Actually, one time, when my friend B___ was about to leave the country for the States, my daughter and I hanged out in her house one Christmas; my usband and son were in Mindanao at that time. To while away the time, I started to play Christmas songs on the piano and later on segued to “Bayan Ko, ” composed by Constancio de Guzman and lyrics by Jose Corazon de Jesus. But then my friend hushed me and said “Shh, huwag masyadong malakas; baka ka marinig ng kapitbahay.” As I never want to leave a musical piece unfinished I played the song again till the end, this time, pianissimo. My friend became quite apprehensive and my daughter she did was innocent of what we were going through. But I knew that beside me, my friend and her sisters were humming the tune, too. The song I was playing was the signature piece at all mass rallies in the country before martial law was declared. Singing it was a recognition of its significance, (it was composed during the American period in the Philippines) to unite the people against the colonial rule of Americans and hence our singing at that time also signified the continuing saga of our people to free ourselves from the all forms of colonial oppression the Spanish, american, British and Japanese, including the dictatorship.

When I left the country in 1981,we were still under martial law. I did not experience any feeling of elation; leaving was like a duty for me – I had to tell the world what was happening to my country. Marcos had been able to hush the whole country, and I had experienced it first hand. In one of my film projects then on the Christian-Muslim reconciliation in Mindanao, which brought us all over the island, from Cotabato (Kiamba and Sarangani) to Davao, and Zamboanga my team and I went through heavily guarded places. But we had a mission to finish: tell the world about what kind of genocidal acts Marcos was doing there, displacing the people from their homes, and wreaking havoc on the lives of the people, most especially the children. The nun, who later on I learned left the convent, and my media group had to send our materials to Manila under deeply secret circumstances. The Super 8mm films, which were in cassette form at the time,and which I had shot, as well as the photo film rolls had to be transported to Manila for editing. But we could not carry them in our bags because of the possible extreme searching that could be done of our luggages at the airport. Hence we left them with our religious companion.

Safely they arrived in Manila and my team and I were able to finish our opus -- a series of photos, together with the audio-visual presentation about the issue which I scripted and edited with visuals. How did the filmrolls arrive? The beautiful nun simply wrapped everything in napkins and put them in a box of sandwiches to hide them from the prying eyes of the military at the airports. She was a very good disguised courier who simply laughed at every minute of deceiving the unwanted authorities at the time.

In May 1981, I was invited to present my films at the First International Conference of Women in Film and Video in Amsterdam courtesy of Cinemien and my friend Annette Forster, a very tall woman, more than 6 ft and who was more beautiful than Grace Kelly. Upon reaching Europe, I felt and knew that my life was changing already. And my love of country surfaced as I was savoring all the new cultures I had encountered.

There and then, I wanted to expand my democratic space as much possible in the continent. I wanted to see how the people lived freely; under what circumstance did they and could they assert their freedoms?

Thus I toured the continent, alone, because I could not find another Filipino or Filipina to come with me. Almost all of them were busy working as domestic helpers or as a seafarer with very few days onshore. But I could not be deterred from traveling and I was not disappointed at all.

The political movements there were in full flowering, from all types of peaceful revolutions enshrining the right not to be homeless, the right to have a choice on one’s sexual partner, the right to speak and to assert to their local and national officials what freedoms (even from want of film production capital) they could have. Even the migrants – from Eastern Europe escaping Russia’s hegemonistic policies, the Latin Americans especially the Chilenos who were anti-Pinochet the butcher-ruler, the Cubanos who were suffering from US embargo, the El Salvadorenos whose liberation music songs were simply invigorating were there. I met South Africans (I found out not all Africans were black; some were white -- migrants from Europe), Argentinians, Egyptians, and almost all nationalities. Not only sectoral but even children’s and women’s rights were recognized so that they could earn allowances from the State should the man abandon them and hitch it off with another partner or leave the country for another in the continent.

It was the eighties and despite the presence of conservative forces, my liberal friends and acquaintances were not afraid to speak out. I remember particularly when I spoke at a gathering of migrant women. I was allowed in for free and I spoke what kind of humiliating childhood I suffered from. In my country, I told the women, and one even asked me to repeat what I had said on the floor in front of a video camera, it was ugly to be brown, and I had to bleach myself in order to look fair, as fair as my sister who took after my mother who was one-fourth Chinese, fair-looking but with features that were a mix of her European grandma heritage and Filipino father. (So now you will know that my features are not really All that ‘Filipino.’”)

And so under those circumstances, love of country was extremely admired, appreciated and nurtured, even in those foreign lands in Europe. Each of us in that setting in Europe – having come from different parts of the globe were united in asserting ourselves to be free of all inquities that could hamper our full exercise of our citizenship.

I took all my experiences in Europe like a religious duty that would finally end in heaven. One time, a Mexican filmmaker was so astonished at my political assertions through the films that I had brought that he held my cheek and then told me, “read the book by this indigenous woman who fought the State for the right of her people to stay in their ancestral land.”

After that meeting, I readily looked for that book and found it at Ujamaa Center, a store put up by alternative groups to sell books from Third World countries those suffering from iniquitous and imbalanced economic ties with the First World countries. I savored the book of the indigenous woman and more books – detailing the struggles against racism, militarism, dictatorship – especially the successful one in Nicaragua, the hottest country at that time, as the Farabundo Marti Liberation Front and the Sandinistas had just overcome the country’s dictator.

Hence, when I returned in Christmas of 1982, I knew already what to do. I had to speak out. And I was amazed at myself at that time as I did not feel weak to confront the dictator and his military machine that was propping him up. I spoke at many gatherings, most especially about women’s liberation, and how different it is from the liberation of women in the west who have already institutionalized their freedoms, while we were still struggling with the right to free speech, assembly, and all other basic human rights. Some of my friends found it odd for me to sound very foreign and so I started writing, writing, writing. I knew that once my thoughts were printed, people would find them worthwhile. Talking was not enough. So i spent my saved 200 dollars to print my first book, Philippine Women in the Third World.

Today, as I look back to my experiences, I feel proud that I underwent them and am willing to go through them all over again with greater vigor.
I believe now that the greatest struggle of all is seeing the people in my country free from all forms of dictatorships, free to speak, sing, communicate, and exercise all other freedoms so necessary for being alive.

Today also, the sense of patriotism I carry is no longer confined to our country, the Philippines. I feel that I must share that passion for loving the country with all other citizens of the world for our kind of love goes beyond boundaries.

We know that the Philippines is the land of our birth and it has nurtured us to be what we are – caring and nurturing -- to the point that the government of Marcos and the succeeding ones exploited it by sending our young, energetic, and robust workers and professionals to work abroad to earn dollars for their families and the country, no matter what kind of iniquitous bilateral agreements were made with the receiving country. (No president has ever dared to stop that and am so glad that PNoy had hinted in his speech when he assumed the presidency that he would stop that disastrous economic solution which uprooted and separated the overseas Filipino workers and professionals from their families and the soil of their birth through that line, “Puwede na tayong mangarap muli (We can dream again.)” and which means everyone can dream of a better life without having to leave this country.

Now the greater concern of mine is more earthbound, no longer confined to our country. The greater question that eggs me to live on is how do we make the earth a peaceful place for everyone? In particular, how do we make the Arab and Muslim men value women as their equals? How do we stop the terrorism that stalks the earth? Does using guns stop all forms of violence or does it only exacerbate the situation? What is the role of superpowers in this political game?

Two days ago, I came across a book on American government written by a man who must have worked with the defense as his work is replete with data that could not readily be accessed by anyone. It said in that book that certain states in the United States have factories that manufacture bullets and other military paraphernalia. Then I suddenly remembered a Filipino inventor who was very proud of his invention: “Ang aking naimbento ay isang bala na kapag tumama sa katawan ng tao ay iikot ito sa loob at mamamatay ang tao. Hindi lalabas sa kabilang bahagi ng katawan ng tao ang bala kundi magpapaikut-ikot ito sa loob ng katawan niya.” I squirmed in my seat when he said that because I had thought then that it was the height of insensitivity to the human body. This is because to me, everyone, terrorist or not has the right to live. If I should change the mind of a terrorist I would do it through education, and not through the bullet nor the bomb.

Hence, that book opened my eyes to the reality that we are living in a world where destruction of human beings appears normal, including the bombing of the earth and these are being committed day in and day out. Under such circumstances, I can only dream of a wonderful world, for my powers rest only on the creative aspects of revealing my thoughts through writing, painting, drama and film. I will not and cannot even try to confront the terrorists for I am very puny compared to the arms that they carry.

Despite all the hardships that we could possibly be experiencing in realizing a world of peace, I still have that glimmer of hope that certain individuals in different continents are doing their share of equalizing the status of peoples on earth, of making the earth a livable place to live in, and a place where children, women, men and everybody else can exist together in harmony. Thus, I think that as we go through such difficulties and bear our dreams of a better world, I foresee our embracing the earth as a borderless planet – where everyone can freely move about without meeting any obstacle.

But then our greater task now is how to change the minds of people so that they would embrace that idea of a borderless earth where everyone could be free to go to that or those places where they could be human, could be treated humanely, and be able to share their lives for the good of everyone, and the earth. And should we find iniquities or obstacles that do not make this worthwhile pursuing, then that would urge us to be assertive and to show that those inquities and obstacles need to be obliterated for they hamper our exercising our humanity.

Now is there still a need for love of country at this point? Our love of country will always stay there in our hearts forever. No one can take that away from us. I think that our country keeps nurturing in us those ideas that make us what we are right now.

The Philippines is a unique country and so are all the others in their own way. Each human being will always know and remember that their roots lie in those countries of their birth, no matter what kind of encounters they experience. And everyday of our life, we will know that we were born in this country and no one can take that knowledge away from us nor should anyone try to.

It is like saying, I was born with this skin, and so I shall love it. Hence, we say, I was born in the Philippines and I love her. And should our experiences of living in this country be more intense than all others, then that should not be taken against us by anyone. Nor should anyone call it jingoism. Why because our experiences would account for all the novel and unique ways of our thoughts, our behaviors, our feelings and for our knowing and understanding the world. I am sure all other peoples of the world would feel the same, or I hope so.