BY JULIA CARREON-LAGOC
MISTY. I just couldn’t help being misty-eyed as I typed the title of this column.
Sweet and bitter memories intermittently played up in the mind. Sweet when I think of dear friend Luisa Posa-Dominado — long-haired, gentle, compassionate.
Bitter when I recalled her abduction — wrested away from us seven years ago. Remembered thoughts that lie “too deep for tears,” to quote a line from poetry.
Famed singer cum songwriter Joey Ayala in his Lupang Hinirang version
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFNeodd90mQ) ended the Philippine National Anthem with “Ang magmahal ng dahil sa iyo.”
While Ayala’s finale is beautifully positive, I opted to use the original because it defines Luisa Posa-Dominado — ready to sacrifice life itself for country and people — courage and willpower anchored to serve the people.
“Luing,” as we fondly call her, is infused with love and concern for the downtrodden, ready to give her life in selflessness that knows no bounds.
The email I received from Leeboy Garachico narrated what I missed last August 10: a birthday celebration without Luing, the honoree.
Friends, relatives, and family members gathered around the concrete marker where the snare of the devil transported her and Nilo Arado to a kingdom we know not where.
Leeboy, who survived a gunshot wound, was left for dead. The place: Barangay Cabanbanan in my relatively peaceful hometown Oton, in Iloilo.
Hoping against hope that the Desaparecidos still have the breath of life in them, I write this biopic in the present tense.
Luisa Posa-Dominado is the spokesperson of SELDA (Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainees Laban sa Detensyon at Aresto).
Nilo Arado is a national council member of Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Peasant Movement of the Philippines). I recall seeing him on TV as he testified in the senate hearing of the notorious Joc-joc Bolante fertilizer scam. Their companion, Jose Ely “Leeboy” Garachico is the public information officer of KARAPATAN-Panay. KARAPATAN is the alliance of human rights organizations.
Being in harness for grandmother tasks here in the U.S. of A., I could only visualize the candles glowing, the Sine Panayanon and the Panay Fair Trade staff expressing their sentiments in songs, bonding with May Wan, Luing’s daughter, and the Posa brothers – Louie, Benjie, and Edgar.
Special mention in Leeboy’s email is Bea Blase, an Italian fair trade group member who is in the Philippines for the international fact-finding and solidarity mission on the killing of Panay Fair Trade manager Romy Capalla and Dionisio Garete, a member of the local fair trade network.
I yield the rest of my space to a heart-tugging tribute from Margaret Rose Dominado:
***
August 10 – the birthday of my cousin, Ma. Luisa “Luing” Posa-Dominado. We are still looking for her.
She was a human rights activist, a woman, a wife and a mother. She was abducted last April 12, 2007 which was also the birthday of my late mother, Aida de los Santos.The last time I saw her was during my mother’s wake.
A month before she was abducted, I was home in the Philippines to attend my eldest daughter’s graduation. At that time, I was in Bacolod and Dumaguete most days and never got the chance to see her. As thoughtful as she always had been, she sent a bouquet of flowers for my daughter.
During the years of the Marcos regime, I used to visit her in Camp Delgado where she was held captive as a political detainee. I was a young college student then. She was a key factor in my winning the national on-the-spot essay contest sponsored by the Philippine Nurses Association during the late ‘70s.
Our conversations in the stockade gave me deeper insights and practical tools for social analysis. There was a time during her incarceration that we celebrated our birthdays together as it’s just a dozen days apart.
Luing was soft-spoken and on the other hand, knew how to strongly stood her ground when necessary.
She was a wife who lovingly and steadfastly worked for freedom from the shackles of corruption and oppression side by side with her husband.
She was a doting mother who constantly worried about her children’s safety.
She was a devoted friend of those in need.
Above all else, Luing was a human being who deserved to be treated like any of us.
Until now, I wondered what were the gains of nabbing her away from her family and friends. Was it the satisfaction of depriving a husband of a loving, supportive wife ? Or nothing but the plain cruelty of snatching away the mother from her children?
Was it to silence her friends and cow her husband into giving up his fight for justice?
But you see, seeds that fell on the ground could blossom into hundreds and thousands of fruits and flowers.
Contrary to the propaganda that portrayed her as fierce combatant, she was actually gentle and frail. The imprisonment and torture took a toll on her health. Nevertheless, her strength and courage remained visible beneath her laughter. It was a kind of laughter that would always remind me of the lighter side in the struggle for peace and justice.
I missed her. (juliaclagoc@yahoo.com)/PN
