Van Vugt: The story of my life in the Philippines

I CELEBRATE my birthday today. I would like to share a bit more about myself with the readers of my column.

I was born on February 5, 1933 in a small village near Amsterdam in the Netherlands, barely 2 weeks before our late President Cory Aquino was born. Because of that I feel I have some affinity with Cory. She died at the age of 76. Here I am still alive at the age of 77. The problem is, if I turn the number of my years around I have still the same age.

In 1960 I was ordained a priest in the Order of the Carmelites. One year after my ordination I was invited to go to the Philippines as a missionary. I hardly knew where the Philippines was situated, somewhere in the Far East. I even thought that the Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians was addressed to the Philippines.

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After my arrival in the Philippines I followed first an adaptation course in Taytay, Rizal and studied the Bisayan language in preparation for my first assignment as parish priest in Escalante, Negros Occidental. There I had my first experience of the grinding poverty of the Filipino people, a different kind of poverty I was used to in Holland, a poverty caused by exploitation and oppression of a feudal system. Almost daily I had to do a blessing for the dead, very often small children.

Soon we realized that we had to change our pastoral approach from saying Mass and distributing the sacraments to work for the upliftment of the life of the people. Inspired by the writings of Gustavo Gutierrez and Paulo Freire, we organized the poor farmers and the farm workers in the plantations, the fishermen and the workers in the factories into cooperatives and we made them reflect on the situation of slavery and exploitation in order to liberate themselves from their situation.

In 1966 I was asked by the Bishop of Ozamis, Msgr. Patrick Cronin, to set up a social action center in Iligan City and an education program for the workers in the factories. We were involved in a strike in Iligan Electric Company when Marcos declared martial law in 1972. I was accused of being the instigator of the strike and put in detention in Camp Tipanoy. It was a sore disappointment for me as a priest to be put in jail. Not long after, I was transferred to Manila and turned over to the immigration for deportation.

Actually they did not officially deport me but the Commissioner advised me to leave the country for a while on the promise that I could come back to the Philippines after six months. When I came back it turned out that I was given a fake re-entry permit and that my name was placed in the list of undesirable aliens. It took me six weeks of waiting in Hong Kong before I was finally allowed to enter the country again, this time as a tourist.

That was my official status during the years of martial law. Soon I joined the anti-Marcos resistance movement and started to sympathize with the NPA in the mountains. Armed struggle was the only way to get rid of Marcos. I joined the National Democratic Front. I became even a member of the Communist Party of the Philippines more out of loyalty to my comrades in the movement than that I believed in the Marxist ideology.

In the church we had the Association of Major Religious Superiors with the different task forces set up to help the many victims of martial law, political detainees, urban poor and oppressed people in the rural areas. The religious were active in the liberation movement but the bishops' stance was critical collaboration with the Marcos regime, until the assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983, which led Cardinal Sin to call for the Edsa uprising and the ouster of the dictator.

Cory Aquino became the new president who, because of her strong faith in God and her sincere desire to serve the people, was able to restore democracy in the country despite the many coup attempts against her government. (To be continued)

(For your comments email: arnvv@yahoo.com or call: 0926-3123366)