A Smoker's 'Laban' Diary

(Or, why bother with Noynoy's smoking when you won't get anywhere close to the President's seat and thus spared from secondhand smoke? LOL)

APRIL 1978. Marlboros cost about 7 pesos a pack. Unilab factory work can only afford me Fortunes and tricycle fare to the Pariancillo for the Laban rally, excited as I was to see them candidates, advertised fighters ala Joe Frazier, to come out smokin'.

If Noynoy was already a smoker back then, I surely didn't get a puff of proof of it, as I only managed a glimpse of him leaving the stage, his white t-shirt emblazoned with "Lakas ng Bayan" in faded red. I wondered if his speech agitated the crowd that filled Pasig Pariancillo on that April night rally leading to the Interim Batasang Pambansa elections.

Pinch-hitting for his imprisoned dad in the '78 campaign, I understood Noynoy was the curiosity in the Pariancillo rally -- but I arrived an hour late and missed his campaign pitch. Funny, but as a first-time voter then, I knew I needed no oppositionist speeches as I was already firmed up on writing bold LABAN letters on the ballot come d-day of block voting (which Ninoy Sr. lambasted and pooh-poohed as "bulok voting", and rightly so). But still, I felt I needed to see this and that oppositon stalwart in person.

It was the night and stage of the late Bobbit Sanchez emceeing, but humdrum was Soc Rodrigo waxing poetic. Planas was introduced as "the opposition's Joan of Arc" and Trinidad Herrera as "Jimmy Carter's friend". Huh?? Roces' pila-pila canned comedy piece was funny alright, but painfully hilarious was Maceda's "Dear Kuya Eddie" satire, with a dog leash props that went with it. I thought I saw some beauty who looked like Gina Pareño handing out leaflets from inside her car. And I was sure it was labor leader turned Laban candidate (turned dead NPA guerilla warrior years later) Alex Boncayao who I saw aboard an owner-type jeep negotiating its way through the crowd.

I came... I saw... I raised my clenched fist on that big Laban rally. But the bigger opposition rally, no, the people's rally, would come on the eve of the elections.

We banged and we screamed, we howled and La-ban-La-ban'd, on that one "New Year's Eve revelry in April". Cars and tricycles revved up to the max. Cans plus calderos equals noise. The Metro-wide noise barrage was ear-splitting, specially for someone who's armed with a claw hammer banging at the huge Meralco steel post at the corner of Mendoza and San Guillermo Avenue in Buting. Eiww... where did Lito get that hammer, btw?

Pasig was not on fire, so reported by friends who joined the spontaneous march to Kapasigan. But bonfires littered and lit some parts of the avenue. When the smoke cleared, uneasy quiet blanketed the tambayan as we were exhausted from all the revelry cum rebellion -- then to bed with another kind of smoke we retreated, stoned.

Smooth and sleepy went the morning polls in Buting Elementary precincts the day after. By early afternoon, an invading platoon of white-shirt, maong pants, combat boots-wearing flying voters were chased out and away from the polling campus amid diplomatese and expletives, fists and flying kicks, rocks and hollow blocks courtesy of like-minded barrio toughies and Labanites. Other than that incident, no uprising was reported in the barangay.

So there. In that decade of living dangerously, April 7, 1978 ended rather anti-climactically. Ninoy heard the noise while in prison. Bulok voting was finally understood to be one devious block that thwarted the people's will. A pack of Marlboro pegged still at 7 bucks, but factory work could only afford me Fortunes.  And aware that Marcos' martial law remained enforced, we were consoled by the fact that our collective anger found vents in a political exercise the dictator grudgingly allowed. Paraphrasing an old leftist dictum: "elections opiate the people", addicts and nicotine-addicts slept rather (un)soundly.

It's been thirty-two years as the noise I still make every now and then are mere whimpers. And in spite of numerous past attempts to quit, this blogger remains a smoker. Just like the President-apparent. My President Noynoy.

"Long live smokers!" Ah, we sure do need the prayer. ;-(

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Rest In Peace,  GIOVANNI  CHICO, 1958-2010.  Childhood buddy, dear friend.
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