By Rey Anthony Chiu | 08:00 PM August 29, 2020
She was barely 15 when she was recruited by members of the underground movement who appear to be regular fixtures in the vicinity of a high school in a town in Bohol.
At 15, she never thought she could put her life in a mess, just because of an unbridled idealism and believing in pretentious promises of the ideal life where everyone would be equal.
Walay pobre, walay datu, tanan patas, tanan tinabangay.
This was what Ka Mariel held on in her young mind, desperately going back to it in times when she felt the excesses of her group was something she could not stomach.
Born to a family of seven kids, Ka Mariel thought she has had enough of a hard poor childhood that the promise of a society with everyone equitably sharing was something worth her life.
They were just there, sitting with the students during break times, in the stores nearby, joining our conversations and pitching in ideas that were new to us, she shared as she adjusted her face mask and the left arm sleeves where a stump of gnarled limbs which were the remnants of her arms stuck out.
I was convinced, I joined them in their meetings in the wooded areas near the school, although I never had any inclination to take up arms like what they proposed to topple the government, she confessed, not nervously but with a sense of sarcasm now.
Mariel, herself then convinced she could help them win against the government joined as among the mass base which the New People’s Army of the Communist Party of the Philippines cling on to survive in the war they have planned to take over the government, starting with instigating the communities in the countryside.
I was there, I would help them out seek for food, medicines, clothing when their companions would come to the lowlands to get food for their comrades hiding in the forests.
Once, I was told to accompany to deliver firearms, which were placed inside a sack. M16s, and he have to go through a highway section, she recalls.
The driver, she easily remembers, was fumbling, knowing that if anyone would see us who knows what was inside the sack would easily connect us to the rebels who were in the nearby forests.
“Out of fear maybe, or to make sure nobody could catch us, the driver sped a bit too fast in a potholed road that it never took us long to hit a deep rut when we spilled off the streets into a wallowing pond where a farmer, who was not a supporter was cooling his carabao,” she narrated, slapping he thigh to illustrate the fun and the tense situation.
“From the sack spilled, not cassava, or firewood of other agricultural crops, but fire arms, and the farmer who saw it, knows me,” she innocently laughed not really cognizant about what this would bring her in courts.
They immediately picked up the motorcycle, went on with their mission, knowing the farmer who was also scared seeing the fire-arms would spill to no one.
“I thought we were able to instill fear on the farmer not to tell anything, but days later, there were stories about me being an NPA, and these have reached my parents and my aunts,” she detailed, knowing there was no turning back anymore.
This was in 1996.
Formally joining the rebels, she, at 15, found out that her squad comprised of also young teen-agers, mostly below 18 and majority were girls already carrying long fire-arms, a clear violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Although an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict was agreed, the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and the International Humanitarian Law bans armed groups distinct from the armed forces of a country form recruiting or using anyone under 18, under any circumstances, in hostilities.
Deployed in the forests of Batuan, Bilar, Sagbayan and Carmen, Ka Mariel was nicknamed “Bunso,” had a series of raids under her badge as a rebel.
In fact, she confessed she was among the three look-outs when the rebels who disguised as government officials, took over a police camp in Batuan.
“Aside from the two vans which were marked DILG, we were on a flimsy tricycle parked near the van. If there was an immediate reinforcement, what protection could a tricycle give?” she asked, now getting the danger she has gotten herself in.
She was also there at a takeover of a town hall in central Bohol, and a key official at the Department of Social Welfare who was from the town has identified her.
It was after that raid in the police camp in Batuan when the severity of her situation truly sank in.
“For hours, we were hiding under acacia shades because helicopters were flying overhead, and it was impossible to move without being seen from above, she narrated again,” innocence still in her eyes, even when she is now 36.
The raid also had the government send in additional troops to hunt us down, Tagalogs and Ilongos, she said.
“It was hard, we could not cook during daytime as the smoke would give us out, so we stayed hidden until night time when we could find food and race back to the forests,” Mariel, who was familiarizing the terrain in Batuan with still a few weeks in her deployment from her previous lairs, added.
It was about 2 PM, one rainy afternoon, we were six left in camp while the rest of the group were away to search for food, when a patrol squad chanced at us. What we though was the cracking of the leaves were actually the soldiers steadily creeping to our position. While some of our comrades ran, there was no way to go. We were practically surrounded and the only way out was a way down the rugged cliff, where below was a rice field where there was nowhere to hide. So, we fought it out.
She was shooting at a sniper when somebody on her side hit her trigger arm and sent it swinging harmlessly over her shoulder.
“There was a burning pain and then she managed to just lay there gripped in pain and praying for reinforcement, which did not come,” the ferocity of the truth about being abandoned in hardship and helping each other, clearly an NPA lie.
“Ang mga army, salbahis, mga walay kaluoy, mao nay among isulti sa among mga sakop,” (The soldiers are savages and merciless, that is our usual line to our comrades), she mouthed, but then the army actually took her to a hospital in Bohol, her right arm barely attached to the elbow.
After getting her wounds cleaned, they rushed her to a city hospital and then was flown to Cebu for a better treatment and for her security.
Captured as a warrior, Ka Mariel was tried in court and faced charges including subversion, murder, and a pile of other charges.
Incidentally for her, being a minor, Ka Mariel was tried but was granted parole.
She want to Manila to find work, her employers having no idea who she was. But with a limb effectively making her a person with disability (PWD) she earned a scholarship program for PWDs and got help from Boholano advocate for child rights coalition.
Child Right Advocate Amihan Abueva helped Ka Mariel get trainings including quilting, and many other skills.
In Manila where she started to get a bit better with managing her money, Mariel, who has decided to totally reverse her life: from killing people as a rebel to adopting a baby boy to make sure he grows into a more productive citizen.
“I was there in a hospital when he was born, processed all the necessary documents for adoption, and took care of him. She even brings the child to his parents then, but the child would rather go with her than join his siblings who are among Cavite’s financially hard-up.
“Nalooy ko kay siyam na ang ilang anak, sunod sunod pa, polus mga walay trabaho,” she said, not really minding taking care of a child despite her otherwise useless right arm.
“Wala lang, gusto lang ko nga makatabang,” she pressed on asked what made her decide to help.
Seemingly, as a child rebel warrior, the move to correct her messy life has reached a point where something radical has to be done, not by force and firearms but by love and care.
By 2018 however, she learned that his father in Bohol got sick, so she decided to come home, finally and face the ghosts of her past.
As a parolee, and intending to sustain the support for her adopted child, Mariel found work in Bohol when a rebel returnee whom she called “Nanay,” saw her and told her about formally surrendering to avail of government assistance and clear her name in the army’s order of battle.
With the government’s enhanced comprehensive local integration project, Mariel got processed into the comprehensive assistance package for rebel returnees including safety and security guarantees for the former rebel, a P15,000 immediate assistance, subsistence while in custody of the army, facilitation in securing new IDs and identities by the local DSWD, support in her relocation to keep her from stigma, and Livelihood assistance worth P50,000.
With the P15,000 initial assistance, I bought a motorcycle as my service to attend to the processes of my reintegration, which is also used to run a small buy and sell business.
“I buy bananas, camote and other farm products and resell them in the town, getting a neat profit which I use to subsist,” he shared, noting that her brief time in Manila has taught her to judiciously use her money as she can rely on nobody in need.
With the P50,000 livelihood assistance, I bought a small farm lot in a town in Bohol, and started, along with good neighbors, a small house and a productive farm where she grows range chicken, goats and duck. She also planted camote, cassava and other crops including vegetables for her and her adopted child Yohan’s consumption.
Yohan, she said is not 8 years old.
Asked about her security from the NPAs now, she said, I have been wanting to see them and demand from them their promises.
“Ingon sila, mag salbahis ang mga army, pero ngano nga nia pa man ko karon?” she dared the question now ready to talk about the lies that the rebels have peddled to the innocent recruits.
Asked why she joined then at a young age, she said her favorite lie, “walay bata sa grupo kon kamao lang mohunahuna (As long as one knows how to think, there are no ages in rebellion).
Now, seemingly seeing a new take at her lie, she also hinted, walay matiguwang sa grupo kon kamao lang mohunahuna, (Nobody can grow old there, as long as one thinks but critically about the lies.
Ka Mariel, then child warrior who has offered her arms to a cause she falsely believed, is now among the 47th Infantry Battalion’s speakers in their community engagements calling the rebels to end local communist armed conflicts in Bohol, now that the government is keen at finally bringing in the peace for development to nest.
After all, the army believes, there is nobody as credible to fight a lie than a victim herself. (rahchiu/PIA-7/Bohol)
