FOCAP launches Dateline Manila

The Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines or FOCAP for short has successfully launched its book - a collection of stories by journalists working for the foreign media over a period of 30 years. FOCAP was a child of necessity, born at a very difficult period when Philippine press freedom was silenced to submission by the dictatorship of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Its birth and nurture is owed to Filipino media pioneers - the late AFP's Teodoro "Teddy" Benigno and CBS News Gabby Tabunar.

I quote the contents of the book: "The essays and photographs in this volume are meant to provide snapshots of events over the last 33 years - from the declaration of Martial Law by Ferdinand Marcos in 1972, through the assasination of Benigno Aquino Jr. in 1983, the "People Power Revolution of 1986, the ouster of President Joseph Estrada in 2001 and the travails of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo at present."

I contributed an article on "Covering the Marcos Insurgency War", a long story but not quite enough to cram in five and a- half years of political reporting on Marcos - his wars with the communist insurgents, the Muslim secessionists, the political oppositionists and even the United States and its overbearing presence through its two giant military bases in the country.

When Oliver Teves sent me an email, requesting me to write on the topic, I was overwhelmed. It meant I would travel back in memory to the turmoils of the Marcos era, recount the fears and dangers that faced me - and others, in the name of journalism. I considered these journalistic years to be the most significant in my life because each day of being alive and working, constituted the limits of a lifetime. There was no future as close as tomorrow. That was how uncertain I was of my existence.

I am not exaggerating about the dangers of news reporting during Marcos era. A year after the declaration of martial law in 1972, and four years before I accidentally became a foreign correspondent, a jeepney-load of plainclothes men arrived in my house on BF Paranaque. I was issued a warrant of arrest and taken to a military camp in Laguna. I was the 13th of women detainees held in the military clubhouse. (I suppose they have run out of space in the real prisons, considering the thousands of Marcos' political opponents jailed since a year earlier.)

Even if my incarceration lasted only for 31 days - and that's not due to the benevolence of Marcos' military henchmen, it was nonetheless the most traumatic life and death moment for me. During these days, life was extremely cheap and "salvaging while in captivity" was a daily sport for the military. It was even worst that my arrest was not on the prison record, indicating in all possibility that I could "disappear". Why I was miraculously released after a month, I owed to a dear friend who is related to a former Philippine foreign minister and who is a friend of the head of the Philippine Constabulary. (Family connections in the Philippines are important, and so is the debt of gratitude.)

When I read Alice C. Villadolid's account of Benigno Aquino's assassination in Manila International Airport last Aug. 21, 1983, I had flashbacks of events that happened shortly before. Less than a month ago, around mid-July of the same year, I left the country with my husband, the Swedish Ambassador Bo Kälfors and my two young sons. He had finished his tour of assignment as Chief of Mission Manila, but our departure for his next assignment in Africa was hindered by a warrant of arrrest issued by the military against me, which they were supposed to deliver at the Swedish residence. But that could not be done. It was Swedish territory. So we waited, deep in anxiety- along with the FOCAP people camped at the Ambassador's residence, for the ban to be lifted.

The Director of Protocol came after a few days with a letter signed by Marcos himself stating "... for humanitarian reasons and compassionate justice..." I was allowed to leave the country. What a mess it was ignoring the Geneva protocol for departing chiefs of mission. The Swedish Foreign Ministry granted me a Swedish citizenship without my asking for it. Enroute to Stockholm via New York, I phoned Ninoy Aquino in Boston. I interviewed him about his plan to return home and he told me, jokingly: " So...they they want to lock you in and to lock me out". We were in Stockholm on the fateful August 21, 1983, when I saw news of the shooting - some blurred pictures of the Manila airport and unintelligible conversations. I lost my breath, unable to fathom the bottomless abyss in which Marcos had thrown himself. It was the end of all beginnings.