Inside the walls of Bilibid prison


by Leslie Hope
October, 1995

The friends and I ride buses and then a tricycle to the southern outskirts of Manila. At the end of a stretch of road, surrounded by an immense green lawn, a white castle gleams.

Mocking the palaces of feudal lords, it is festooned with parapets and crenelated walls. Restful green and yellow striped awnings belie the meaning of the black letters etched in peeling paint above the massive wooden doors:

KAWANIHAN ng nga BILANGGUAN
(Department of Corrections)
NEW BILIBID PRISON

Nearby is a boutique, selling sailing ships trapped inside bottles, and other artifacts crafted by hungry prisoners. It is early May 1995 in the Philippines, and fans creak as we smooze a succession of pot-bellied, armed bureaucrats. The price of my admittance is handing over my U.S. drivers license as hostage, and receiving a pat-down.

Our hands are stamped with a purple ink blot, and we pass through an iron cage directly into a throng of prisoners selling balsa jewelry boxes, carved animals, and religious icons. Inside the huge, sun-hot dirt yard are several large cell-blocks and a decrepit "hospital." A young man escorts us hundreds of steps past food and drink stalls--manned by "The Syndicate"--to a cell-block in the back, where we are expected by thirty politically united men imprisoned for "common crimes." The young man, obviously a stoolie, asks us for money. As we enter the darker domain of the political prisoners, he holds back and says he will "wait for us."

Inside the cell-block there are no iron bars, just a big room partitioned by cardboard and plywood into tiny sleeping cubicles opening into the common areas. We pass by a ping-pong table and through an opening into the backyard of the building. It is lunch-time, and we are invited to share our host's meager portions of rice, fish, and a green vegetable.

As in any prison on the planet, individual survival here is only made possible by membership in a mutual-aid group. The open ground between the building and a barbed-wire-topped perimeter wall belongs to our hosts. A crude kitchen has been constructed, under a tin roof, to cook the prison harvest. Nobody survives on the thimble of rice and fish-water ladled out by the State. The thin men rely on food donations from friends and family outside the walls and upon their own agricultural ingenuity.

In this small, dusty space, they have constructed several six-foot deep fish-ponds. Carp fingerlings are raised in shallow pans so the bigger fish cannot not eat them. When they are strong, they are released into the murky pools of algae.

There are small plots of vegetables and a flock of justifiably paranoid chickens: prisoners of the prisoners. Nobody is smiling. Eating is deliberate. Fresh water is served with pride.

Unlike the furtive glances and the frantic pace of the Main Yard, the social atmosphere here is measured. An invisible line has been crossed. This oasis beats with the seriousness of the trapped, yearning to walk free, yet, committed to a set of ideals and revolutionary practices in which freedom is defined as freedom for the Filipino people as a whole.

Our plates are taken and we are escorted into the library of Marxism- Leninism-Maoism. Only, there are no books in this well-used classroom. They were confiscated, along with the precious red flag of the students. The single bright spot in the room is a red hammer and sickle painted on a plywood wall. Someone suggests that it should be painted on the main gate--let the guards confiscate that!

We sit on a bench and the comrades silently form a circle in which we are a part. We are introduced by name as anti-imperialists from the United States and as supporters of the national democratic liberation struggle of the Filipino people. One man quickly leaves the room.

There are a few women and babies in the circle visiting their husbands and fathers. The right for conjugal visits was not easily won. Without constant political attention from the outside, these men would have been disappeared by their captors. The prisoners know the value of outreach.

Each person introduces himself and describes the circumstances of his arrest and the common crime with which he was charged. Most choose to speak in one of the national languages, which are translated into English for us.

Many of the men were picked up in sweeps of the rural areas during genocidal bombings and raids of barrios deemed to be under the influence of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and the New People's Army (NPA). If these peasants and workers were apolitical before their arrests, they are apolitical no longer. Fires smolder in their eyes.

Some of the comrades were taken prisoner in fire-fights between the NPA and the reactionary armies of Ramos, Aquino, Marcos. Instead of being accorded the rights of political prisoners of war, as theorized by the Treaty of the Geneva Convention, they were charged with common crimes of murder, arson, possession of fire-arms. Bail is unavailable. Habeas corpus ignored. Trial dates protracted. Evidence scarce.

The Ramos regime claims there are no political prisoners in the Philippines. In fact, there are over 340 political prisoners and ten percent of them are here in this circle.

Bilibid is the Ramos Hilton of prisons. In the countryside, political prisoners struggle in even worse conditions and are forced into slave labor.

Two million people are homeless refugees on the plains and hills of the archipelago. They were driven from the land by Ramos' land-grabbing Total War Policy in accord with the low-intensity warfare blueprint of the United States.

The entire population of the Philippines is the "collateral damage" of a semi-feudal, neo-colonial society deliberately perpetuated in agricultural and industrial backwardness by multi-national corporate polluters such as Dole, Del Monte, Nestle, Pepsi Cola Bottling Company, Coca Cola Bottling Company, Eveready Battery, Kawasaki Steel, Ralston Purina, Nippon Steel, Siemens Corporation, San Miguel Beer.

Despite the efforts of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, GATT/WTO, and other instruments of foreign monopoly capital to maintain a de-industrialized Philippines as a pool of "cheap and docile labor," the Filipino people have been waging a People's War, steadily surrounding the cities from the countryside, for twenty-six years.

Our hosts say that they are encouraged by the shape of the on-again, off-again peace talks between the NDFP and the Government of the Republic of the Philippines (GRP). One of the goals of the NDFP in waging the peace talks is the release of all political prisoners. The prisoners remark, however, that the talks are secondary to winning a complete victory through armed struggle, and that the government is incapable of meeting the conditions of genuine peace.

As the comrades tell their similar stories, we learn that two of them are international celebrities. Both are under thirty and severely scarred from bone-breaking tortures. They were suspected of assassinating U.S. Army spy Colonel Rowe in 1988.

Lacking evidence to substantiate this charge, the State has held them for eight years on lesser charges. U.S. President Clinton appealed last year to Ramos to stop their due parole, so they remain here. They say they desire no special attention from international activists. Their slogan is the slogan of the group: Free ALL Political Prisoners!

A concert is announced and a guitar strums the chords for A Rustling Of Leaves, the beloved Bayan Song of the trapped. An original composition follows and the singing is low and strong. There is a collective sadness in the strains of the songs, so comfortingly familiar to the singers. It is a sadness that has been accepted, born of duty and determination. If freedom is the recognition of necessity, then this circle has been liberated.

The man who left the room before, now returns. With solemn ceremony he presents each friend from the belly of the beast with a gift. Mine is a plain three by five inch balsa wood envelope. From within it, I slide a folded balsa card which has been painted with an emblem. In the foreground is a thatched-roof house on stilts. Beneath it laps a yellow sea. The sky is red, filled with a yellow sun, across which a wisp of orangish cloud moves.

Handwritten inside the card is my name and, "We wish you and other Comrades in the USA success in your work. Long live the unity and solidarity between the Filipino people and the American people against U.S. imperialism. MABUHAY KA!--Political Prisoners, NBP Philippines." I have never received a gift which I treasured more.

The card-giver pauses. All eyes are now upon us. He says, "We have shared our lives with you and given you these presents in appreciation of the long way you have come to keep us company. Now. Comrades from the United States. What will you do for us?"

I spoke my heart then, and I speak it now, months later. "You have given us much more than these simple gifts. You, soldiers, and, you, the Communist Party of the Philippines, and, you, the people of the Philippines, are showing millions around the world that the destructive backwardness which afflicts our earth can be consciously changed into its opposite.

"Monopoly capitalism is the root cause of all evil today. The seeds of the new society are growing in this prison cell. The news of the rectification of the Communist Party of the Philippines is an inspiration to internationalists everywhere. Your dedication to living your basic principles--and your striving to truly integrate with the masses--has brought the Philippine Revolution from the brink of disaster to the dawn of national liberation and socialism. Soon, the oppressed will have a socialist state to look towards once again.

"I promise that when you call for solidarity demonstrations at your jailer's consulate in my city, I will organize anti-imperialists and be there. I will work to create public opinion for your cause to the best of my ability. I will learn from the example of your Party, which is showing the world--in practice--the very meaning of criticism-unity-criticism."

The guitar starts with the notes of that song sung, hummed, and thought in all languages since the Paris Commune. Tagalog, Cebuano, Bicol, Ilicano, Visayan, and English mix in organized chaos as our left hands form raised fists and the firm tempo solidifies our friendship. "Sang Baksa!" We laugh, shake hands, joke about the possibility of meeting again. They promise to visit us when we are in prison.

We have been here three hours. The sound of an ancient type-writer echoes against the plywood--everyone is suddenly busy. On the way out, I notice a schedule taped to a cement wall. It is a duty-roster written by the prisoners, who take turns guarding their liberated zone.

In the main room, we have time for one game of ping-pong. We bash the ball back and forth in yet another universal language and keep no score.

As we emerge from the political compound, the stoolie tags along behind me demanding pesos. As we approach the gate, the crowd of hawkers thickens around us. Desperation fills the air as the "common criminals" watch ordinary Americans who "make" more money in one day than the average Filipino earns in three months begin to vanish through the prison bars. They claw at us and beg.

I can do nothing, but leave. I want to tell them that they are political prisoners, too.