Part 1: The novitiate raid that pulled the Church into EDSA and beyond

August 24, 1974 was supposed to be a routine meeting of urban poor leaders, priests, nuns, and members of a social democratic group, Kapulungan ng mga Sandigan ng Pilipinas (KASAPI), at the Jesuit Sacred Heart Novitiate in Novaliches. The attendees, led by Fr. Jose “Derps” Blanco, S.J. assembled in this quiet space to discuss their organization’s peaceful but critical engagements under the shadows of Martial Law. That day, however, quickly became far from ordinary. Before the meeting could even begin, several helicopters started encircling the area. State troops, armed with guns, stormed into the building and arrested the KASAPI leaders. Over 50 years later, we interviewed the surviving political detainees for a research project on Unsilencing Political Memories. Here are some of their storied remembrances. Detainees’ account of the raid First, the attendees were herded to a room in the Sacred Heart Novitiate, where they were separately interrogated in “bad cop-good cop” fashion. While with the other arrested activists, Tessam Castillo remembered the KASAPI notes in her bag. She asked the arresting soldier to allow her to go to the bathroom to answer the call of nature. Inside the private cubicle, Tessam ripped up her notes typed on onion skin paper, and flushed the pieces down the toilet. When the female guard opened the cubicle door, Tessam still had one sheet of paper left. She tore it up, put the pieces in her mouth, and swallowed everything. She kept the KASAPI notes safe. Jojo Deles escaped arrest by blending with the Jesuit seminarians. Other KASAPI members tried the same tactic, but in hindsight they joked that they did not look like seminarians at all, with their long hair and tattered denims. Jojo remembers how he was protected from arrest when Jesuit seminarian Vic Ibabao offered to hide Jojo’s Ateneo college ID in a soup bowl, as the Novitiate hosts started to serve soup. A few hours later, the arrested attendees were loaded into Metrocom buses parked along the Novitiate. They were then brought to military camps for detention and for some, torture. In the first days of detention, detainees were woken up at ungodly hours for repeated aggressive interrogations. With the rudely unpredictable nightly awakenings, the government agents hoped to break down the detainees’ physical and mental strength. Although the men generally avoided talking about their physical and psychological torture, some KASAPI members reported that the men were beaten during their interrogation. Jun Zamar, from the very first night of captivity, faced the Russian Roulette on two separate occasions. He also testified that Jimmy Quizon✝ suffered cariño brutal. Soldiers asked Jimmy to sit down on a block of ice while naked, in front of an air conditioner. Boyet Montiel was described by a fellow detainee to have been gravely tortured. Boyet’s former cellmate, Rene Castro recounted, “And one night, one night,…(pause) kinuha si Boyet, alam ko… Eh di matagal kami naghintay, hinihintay namin siya. Dumating, nung binalik siya, madaling araw, talagang binibitbit na lang siya ng ano…alam namin, binugbog siya…hindi na siya makalakad…Kasi alam kong nung ibinalik siya, nakahiga siya, nagdasal kami lahat eh. Nagdasal kami magkakasama…Hindi namin tinanong kung ano nangyari. Basta ang alam ko, kinausap siya ni Derps. Tapos, magdasal tayo, sabi ni Derps. Nagdasal kami.” (One night, Boyet was taken away from the prison cell. We waited a long time for him. When he was brought back, it was already early morning. He was being carried [by the interrogating agents]. So we knew, he was beaten. He really could not walk. Because I know when he was brought back, he was lying down. We all prayed together. We didn’t ask what happened, but I knew, Derps talked to him. Then, Derps asked us to pray. We prayed.) It was in detention that Rene realized indeed, they were at the receiving end of State violence. “Kinantiyawan kami ng ibang mga kasama naming detainees kasi mayroon silang hawak na diyaryo at sinasabi na ayon sa balita, kaya raw sila nahuli ay dahil sa amin. Isinumbong daw namin sila. […] Noon ko napatunayan na talagang pina-fabricate ng gobyerno ang mga balita para ma-justify ang ginagawa nilang pagdakip sa mga tao,” Rene shared. (The other detainees we were with mocked us, because they had newspapers in their hands. They told us that according to the news, they were arrested because of us [KASAPI]. They accused us of snitching on them. That was the time I realized that the government really fabricates the news, so they can justify the arrests.) Nearly two months after the raid, Jimmy’s mother wrote to the then-chief of Constabulary, Fidel Ramos, and pleaded with him to release her son as soon as possible. A MOTHER’S PLEA. Jimmy Quizon’s mother urges the Chief of Constabulary Fidel V. Ramos to release her son. Photo by Beth King Upon their release, five women members of KASAPI also wrote an appeal letter to the president, urging him to reconsider the incarceration of the remaining detainees. Further, in their conversations with the other women in their barracks, they discovered that several of the long-term female detainees were raped by military personnel. “PLEASE RECONSIDER THE DECISION YOU HAVE MADE.” Five women KASAPI detainees pen an appeal letter to President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Photo by Beth King The detention period varied, ranging from weeks to months, depending on the detainee’s responses and prior records. The first batch of KASAPI detainees were released due to tremendous Church-led pressure in the public arena. A few of the arrested activists were allowed to go home after a meeting with then-president Ferdinand E. Marcos in Malacañang Palace, where he lectured them about patriotism, with full media coverage. The detainees were then asked to sign an agreement, mandating them to report regularly and in person to the military about their whereabouts and activities. This parole arrangement lasted for years. Catholic Church protects detainees, protests the raid The raid at the Sacred Heart Novitiate kindled the flames for the Church’s public engagements in our nation’s non-violent democratization struggle. Former KASAPI member Beth King narrated with much gratitude the protection and comfort given on Day One of the arrest, by nuns from the Association of Major Religious Superiors of Women in the Philippines (AMRWSP), recalling “…they were having their own retreat, came out of the retreat and surrounded the buses. So they wanted to make sure that we were not hurt that we were all accounted for. They took our names…and they said they’ll call our parents. And they also said that they will tell them not to worry, and they were going to follow us. And they did, they followed us to [Camp] Crame. So in Crame, they were also there.” Aside from protection, the Church also spoke out publicly, protesting false claims of the government in state-associated media. In a Philippine Daily Express article dated August 27, 1974, then-defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile reported that the “subversive” detainees were charged with “rebellion and conspiracy to commit rebellion.” Moreover, he declared that the “operation was conducted with the full cooperation of the Catholic hierarchy.” The Catholic Church strongly and publicly disavowed these claims. On August 28, four days after the raid, Rev. Francis Alessi, P.I.M.E, along with the executive board members of the Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines, attempted to consolidate a complete account of the raid, dubbed as “Operation Novaliches.” The document contained sources such as Cardinal Sin’s appeal letter to Enrile, a report prepared by religious priests who were at the novitiate during the raid, handwritten corrections from other eyewitnesses, as well as erroneous materials from the State media.Church representatives said the report was “being circulated not because of any desire to escalate an unfortunate incident, but in response to many requests for the facts from the solicitous and the curious, and in the hope that others may not go through the same experience.” Notably, they contested claims by the State-controlled press, that the Catholic Church fully supported the military raid at the Sacred Heart Novitiate. IN THE INTEREST OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE. Cardinal Jaime Sin publicly addresses the Archdiocese of Manila and Association of Major Religious Superiors in the Philippines on August 29, 1974. Photo by Beth King. Days after the raid, Cardinal Jaime Sin publicly addressed the Marcos regime for its human rights violations, and called on Philippine civil society to pray for “truth and justice, peace and freedom.” Cardinal Sin implored the public to join a vigil, condemning the military raid as a spectacle of State violence and an attack on human dignity. As the local Philippine Catholic Church objected more loudly, the Sacred Heart raid soon landed in the international news. By September 2, 1974, The New York Times reported that the protest was “the first Catholic demonstration of dissatisfaction with the martial law regime.” As Jun echoed, the raid “triggered the decision of the Church to make a stand [against the Marcos] regime.” (To be concluded) – Rappler.com Editor’s Note: Written with contributions from Fr. Maico Rescate✝, Oya Andres, Tessam Castillo, Rene Castro, Jojo Deles, Beth King, Boyet Montiel, Tina Montiel, Malaya, Karen Tañada, and Jun Zamar. Our project is supported by the Ateneo de Manila’s University Research Council. Our study team was composed of Cristina Montiel, Joshua Uyheng, Ariana Enriquez, and Frodo Uranza of the Political Psychology for Democratization Research Laboratory.