From a college teaching job in the Philippines, I became a supervisor in a transportation rental company in the industrial city of Yanbu. Our company provided car rentals (sedans of all types and brands) and taxi services to Saudi locals, tourists, and expat workers including Filipinos. 

Under my supervision were some drivers, (mostly Indians and Pakistanis, no Filipinos) and two mechanics (one a Filipino). They called me “modir” (manager). When I arrived, I had to learn Arabic double-time as I had to deal with the locals and other clients, as well as subordinates who could not speak or understand English.

Except for intermittent attacks of homesickness marked by sleepless nights thinking of my dear Malou and especially our second son, who was just over a month old when I left, life was fairly good. I was regularly sending a substantial amount to Malou from my monthly pay of US$1,000 (the exchange rate then was P18-20:$1). 

I stayed in an internationally famed hotel. Aside from my regular post, I sometimes did cross-duty at the airport, the town center, and the hotel.

‘Gains’ and ‘pains’

Let me recount some sad observations and an unforgettable experience during my work overseas, if only to provide a glimpse of the “gains” (high income) and the “pains” (family separation and the accompanying psycho-emotional starvation, as well as broken marriages and homes) of the labor diaspora.

Because of homesickness or other factors, many married OFWs enter into extramarital relationships. Unknown to their spouses in the Philippines, not a few manage—through scheming compliance with local laws, such as “multiple marriage”—to acquire a “family or couple accommodation” status. When they are overseas, they cohabit with someone else; when they return to the Philippines, they stay with their spouse and family.

Of course, one can say that philandering is likewise common back home. But for OFWs, the scourge of homesickness because of family separation becomes overwhelming. 

At my workplace, I observed how a number of my fellow OFWs became addicted to gambling, particularly card games, aside from jueteng and other forms of lottery. I saw how they bet extravagant amounts (greenbacks at that!) and even jewelry and other valuables. Two of my friends were certified gambling addicts—one was a bowling pin boy with a modest salary at the hotel where I was staying; the other was a Filipino American working for a US petrochemical company, with a hefty salary. I remember one of them very well because it was said that in one instance, with no more money and jewelry, he bet his unused original Levi’s.

Every Thursday night before the Friday weekly holiday, my two friends would rent big cars from me to pick up their playmates for overnight gambling. Well, I was not a player and did not know the game, but when they won, they gave me a balato (bonus)—in dollars!

Temptations

On hindsight, life in my job was laden with seemingly insurmountable temptations. I myself wasn’t spared, but thank heavens I didn’t give in. I remember, for example, a Caucasian woman, the wife of an American expat worker, who regularly took a taxi for her routine aerobic exercise sessions. One day she called to book a taxi, but there was no available driver. She asked if I could drive her instead—and I agreed out of courtesy, just for that occasion. 

The next time around, she insisted that I, and not the assigned guy, drive for her. She also told me to come to their rented villa—her husband was out at work—as she had prepared food for me and she wanted to show me something. Quite alarmed, and knowing how strict the local laws were, I refused and sent the driver assigned to her.

My office was located beside a hospital, and the arrival of a Filipino female nurse or hospital worker was always welcome news for male OFWs. During the first few weeks of duty of the new hospital employee, she would be visited by suitors bringing flowers, chocolates, etc. Some of my friends would even rent a luxurious car (American- or German-made) from me just to show off to the newly arrived Pinay.

At times, I received invitations to clandestine parties of Filipinos, and would be surprised to find that female OFWs were around. These secret gatherings were perfect occasions for brewing extramarital relations.

Beset by these threats to marital unity which were exacerbated by my seemingly incurable homesickness, after over a year I thought of cutting my contract short and returning home. I tried requesting my employer for a family accommodation visa so I could have my wife and sons come and stay with me. My employer denied my request, so I decided to fly home, the air fare at my own expense.

I told my wife about my decision and she was initially reluctant to agree. I told her: “Look, I have a hundred and one reasons why I have to stay overseas—the pay, etc., etc. But I only have one reason for coming home: It’s you and our family. I don’t want to let our children grow up in my absence.”

Journal entries

But, alas, before I could get home, I was detained for several days!

Here’s the nitty-gritty of what happened, as culled from my long-kept journal: 

Day 1. My travel itinerary was Yanbu-Jeddah-Bahrain-Hong Kong-Manila. I left Yanbu airport at 9 a.m. At 9:50 a.m., I arrived at Jeddah airport, where I changed my money into US dollars.

I left at 2 p.m. for Riyadh together with other Filipinos. Our plane landed in Riyadh around 3:25 p.m. and we were advised to remain seated. After 15 minutes, our passports and plane tickets were collected and we were told to disembark, purportedly to identify our luggage. 

At the airport, we were informed that we could not get to Bahrain because the Manila airport, our end destination, could not confirm our flight. It was closed because of a reported coup d’etat (the coup attempt against President Corazon Aquino’s administration in 1989). We stayed at Riyadh airport for one to two hours, after which we were told to board another plane back to Jeddah. 

We arrived in Jeddah around 7:30 p.m. We were immediately jostled into the immigration area and segregated into two groups—those with exit-reentry visas and those with exit-only visas. I was with the latter group of 17 Filipinos.

We were then packed into a small air-conditioned room with chairs set against the walls and a restroom. We slept on the floor; there were no beds. In the same room at the rear portion were 16 detainees of different nationalities who had been languishing there for quite a while. Immigration authorities kept our passports; our plane tickets remained with us.

Day 2. We were told to call our sponsor-employers, who should pick us up at the airport, cancel our plane reservations, and have these rebooked. The reason, according to immigration authorities, was: We had already accomplished our exit documents and, thus, were no longer supposed to be around. In short, we had become illegal aliens!

In my case, there were two problems: First, my exit visa was stamped when I was still in Yanbu. Second, the exit form or slip which I gave to our company representative in Jeddah, which was supposed to be presented by the sponsor in picking me up, was sent to Yanbu the day before. So, I had to stay. Meanwhile, a few of the other Filipinos were fetched by their employers.

Day 3. Fighting was still raging in Manila and there was no flight to Manila yet, or so the guard told us. We were now only nine. The phone booth being just outside the door, I again called our company branch in Jeddah; I was advised to wait for someone to pick me up. 

I waited until midnight. Nobody came.

Meanwhile, we were locked in the room and treated like criminals by immigration guards. We were not allowed to stand by the door. The only chance I could use the phone booth was whenever the guard entered the room to count us. I had to appeal to him several times in the day before my request was granted. But we were given food thrice daily—at 4 a.m., 2:30 p.m., and 9:30 p.m.

Day 4. Only four of us Filipinos remained in the room. I didn’t call my employer anymore. I felt that my chances of getting fetched were becoming slimmer.

Day 5. We were told that the Manila coup was over and that the airport opened in the afternoon. But there was no scheduled flight yet for Manila.

Day 6. One airline started its first flight to Manila at 10:30 p.m. But we were booked for another airline, which was scheduled to operate its Bahrain-Hong Kong-Manila flight the next day.

Today, the lights in our room were turned off for around SIX HOURS for reasons unknown. In complete darkness, I lay down with my attaché case as a pillow, profusely reciting the rosary on my fingers. What kept my strength and perseverance up was the persistent thought of being reunited with Malou and our sons.

Day 7. At 4 a.m., a man from the airline came asking for our plane tickets. But at 7 a.m., the same man informed us that our Bahrain-Hong Kong flight was not yet confirmed, and that we should just stand by.

Day 8. At last, we were freed! We were escorted by immigration guards all the way to the plane. It was so humbling and so disgusting an experience. Still, I was excited to see my family.

Here’s my closing thought. I must admit that recounting my experience evoked feelings of relief, of healing, of closure. But I’d like to say that my seemingly appetizing life overseas that ended in a wrenching journey home didn’t crush my spirit.  All the more, the harrowing experience made me stronger. 

What kept me going was my consuming love for Malou and our sons. As I have always told her: “Whatever the cost, no matter what happens, I’ll always come home to you!”

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I was arrested in the midst of a crowded wake attended by relatives, local officials and other notable city residents who comprised the city’s elite class. They included two uncles, former city mayor Cesar C. Climaco and Court of Appeals Justice Rafael “Paely” C. Climaco, Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s classmate at the UP College of Law with whom he shared bar-topnotcher honors. 

Uncle Cesar, a prominent martial law critic known for his sarcastic wit, demanded and got a Nisa agent to sign a receipt which read: “Received one warm body of Eduardo Climaco Tadem.” He also took me aside and, supposedly to make me feel better, said: “Eduardo, I envy you. I’ve been trying to get Marcos to arrest me all these years but to no avail.” 

Uncle Paely got me to shave my full beard and requested a cousin to cut my shoulder-length hair to make me look “presentable” to my captors.  He also handed me a copy of James Michener’s 900-page historical novel “Hawaii” to keep me company while under detention. The Nisa agents gave in to my family’s request to allow me to attend my grandmother’s funeral that was to take place in two days before being flown back to Manila. As they also agreed not to take me in custody in the meantime, the agents got some cousins and uncles to sign a document assuring that I would not escape. To ensure that I would be brought straight to a detention center, a lawyer cousin, Julio “Rini” Climaco, (a fraternity brother of Marcos) accompanied me on the plane all the way to Camp Crame in Quezon City, headquarters of the Philippine Constabulary (PC).

Camp Crame

I was detained at the 5th Constabulary Security Unit (5th CSU) in Camp Crame in what was once an ammunitions depot. Befitting its original purpose, the “cells” had no windows or bars—only heavy iron doors which had to be kept open lest we all suffocate to death.  But when an infraction of the rules took place, the doors would be closed for hours, making breathing difficult. Of course, the entrance to the building was securely locked and guarded. 

The first two nights, however, I was confined to an office room and slept on a table in an office. At night I took down the window drapes to use as a blanket to protect me from the freezing cold of an air-conditioner running full blast.

I learned that my house had been raided just before dawn on the day before my arrest and various reading materials confiscated, including books I borrowed from the UP library. Nisa and CSU officers interrogated me intensely for hours a day. Despite advice from a Zamboanga lawyer to just deny everything, I had decided on a game plan: to admit anything that was public knowledge or which I knew they already had information on, and deny matters that I felt they had no access to.  One indicator that my captors knew little about my political involvement was when a Nisa colonel dressed in a dapper all-white suit asked when I had visited the Soviet Union, which I have never done. 

I was shown a publication that supposedly implicated me, but I said that it was an anticommunist tract. At that point, I half-expected to hear the often-told joke about an intelligence officer retorting: “It doesn’t matter what kind of a communist; it’s still a communist.” A glassy-eyed CSU agent lightly hit my knees with a pair of handcuffs and threatened to “pulverize my chest.” The 5th CSU chief remarked how good-looking I was, and this had a chilling effect on me. One time, I was sure I was going to be “summarily executed” when I was taken out for a long drive while being berated for “noncooperation.” I was held incommunicado and disallowed visits by family and friends.

These near-brushes with death reminded me of my father’s morbid words when I refused to migrate with the family to the United States in early 1972. Referring to my activism, he would tell others: “This Eduardo wants to be shot at Luneta just like Rizal.” 

My strategy of feigning cooperation seemed to have worked. Although I was abused verbally and psychologically, at no time was I physically harmed. Many other 5^th CSU detainees, however, recounted to me how they were heavily tortured, brutally beaten, and injected with sodium pentothal, a “truth serum.” This raised dire thoughts of when it would be my turn to undergo such atrocities. Later, a CSU officer told me I was not tortured or taken to a “safe house” because I was arrested in the company of prominent and well-known relatives and city officials. In other words, if I hadn’t gone home at that time for my grandmother’s funeral, I would have been taken instead to one of the military’s notorious “safe houses” where arrested persons were physically abused in unspeakable terms, and some even killed. 

One other detainee escaped torture because his father was also a Marcos classmate and a top business tycoon. But he was handcuffed to his bed the whole day and had to shout at the top of his lungs to the guards if he needed to go to the toilet. Two other detainees who also did not undergo torture were former military officers and Philippine Military Academy graduates who became anti-martial-law activists. One of them was in a cell across from mine; he had a chess set and we would play matches by verbally relaying our moves across the corridor. He also had a guitar which he lent me to play my favorite song, the Cuban anthem “Guantanamera.” I sang this song countless times that other detainees soon grew tired of it.

Temporary release

My detention period lasted a short three weeks. I was a bit embarrassed to be freed quickly as I knew many detainees had been there for months and even more than a year. The day of my surprising release, I stood before a CSU officer and made to sign and swear to a document renouncing my membership in a student organization at UP. Since I was never a member of the said organization, I took the oath with a clear conscience. I also learned that when other detainees saw that I had been freed, some expressed relief at being finally spared of my endless singing of “Guantanamera.” 

My release, as with all others, was classified as “temporary” and I was placed under “town arrest.” I had to seek permission from military authorities each time I left Manila for the provinces. I also had to regularly report to Camp Aguinaldo and submit a written account of my daily activities. The first year, reporting was weekly, then fortnightly the following year, and monthly on the third year. Failure to report would result in a “re-arrest.” 

The reporting at Camp Aguinaldo was ironically almost a festive occasion. I saw many friends and former classmates at UP who were also required to undergo the same process after being given “temporary release” from detention. Under the not-so-watchful eyes of military personnel, we would exchange news and updates on what was going on with our lives. It was almost like a class reunion. 

As for my written reports, I would always write about waking up in the morning, eating breakfast, taking a bath, going off to UP for my classes and library work, consulting with my professors, coming home, having dinner, watching TV and going to sleep. I suspect that all the reports were just like mine and since there were hundreds of us, I doubt that the authorities even bothered to read them,

The military refused to return the books they confiscated from my house although I was issued a document with each book title and signed by the head of the raiding party—a PC captain. The fact that the library books remained with the military gave me endless troubles every semester when I had to register and would be refused clearance by the UP library.  Each time I had to submit a signed letter attesting that the books were not in my possession through no fault of mine and attach a copy of the document receipt for the confiscated reading materials. 

After three years, I was finally granted “permanent release” and freed from regularly reporting to the military. But I was still denied the right to travel abroad. The first time I applied for a passport was when I was invited to speak at an academic conference at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur.  At the Department of Foreign Affairs, I was instructed to proceed to the Nisa headquarters in Quezon City for a debriefing. A Nisa operative, who gave an obviously fake name, showed me parts of my dossier that documented meetings I attended as a National Council member and vice chair of the youth affairs committee of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN) which was chaired by Sen. Lorenzo Tañada. When I remarked that this was hardly a subversive, much less an underground, organization, the agent merely gave me a wry smile. I wondered as to who in the MAN National Council had been feeding information to the military even before martial law. 

As expected, that encounter at the Nisa office did not result in approval of my passport application. Two other applications in following years were similarly denied. But when a consular office opened in Zamboanga City in 1981, I again used my family connections to finally secure a passport—seven years after my detention. I was, at last, free to travel abroad. 

Republic Act No. 10368

My martial law experience, of course, pales in comparison with that of many other victims. In 1995, 10,000 Filipinos won a class action suit in a US court against the Marcos estate for “torture, execution, and disappearances.” Historian Alfred McCoy cites 3,257 extrajudicial killings, 35,000 torture victims, and 70,000 incarcerations. Rape and other forms of sexual abuse were rampant. On Feb. 25, 2013, Republic Act 10368 (The Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act) was enacted. The law created the Human Rights Victims Claims Board which, in 2013-2014, received 75,749 compensation claims for abuses suffered under martial law. 

The Philippine Commission on Human Rights (PCHR) notes that under RA 10368, “the Philippine government recognizes that there were victims of summary execution, torture, enforced or involuntary disappearances and other gross human rights violations committed during the regime of former President Ferdinand Marcos between September 21, 1972 to February 25, 1986.” 

These are on top of the massive theft of an estimated $10 billion of public funds by the dictator, the unrepayable and illicit debt incurred by the regime, and the bankrupting of the economy by Marcos’ technocrats that caused untold suffering among the Filipino people. The PCHR notes that “in 1997, the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland determined that a majority of Marcos Assets in Swiss banks were of criminal origin.” 

Sept. 21 and 23 mark the 51^st year since Marcos declared martial law in 1972. Sadly, as gleaned from the results of recent electoral exercises, many Filipinos have either chosen to forget or never learned about the horrors of one of the darkest periods in our country’s history.   

This piece is a revised and expanded version of an opinion piece of the same title published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer Sept. 21, 2017. 

See: Timely remembrance of martial law off the press

The post Detention, ‘town arrest’ under martial law appeared first on CoverStory.