The Siege Of Apuao Grande Read online

CHAPTER 3

  MOURNING & PLANNING

  CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, MINDANAO.

  Warvic Garcia was despondent and slouched deeper in her armchair than usual. Not only had she lost many of her political peers and allies; some had been personal friends.

  She looked at the plaster cast on her left leg and acknowledged that the unlucky ankle break before the summit meeting was the only thing that had prevented her from attending. The only positive thought she afforded herself was that she literally had a lucky break. That thought quickly faded as she realised she probably had a matter of hours before her safe refuge in Cagayan de Oro City would be known, and PATAG, (Philippines Anti-terrorist Army Group), with other military forces, would be paying her an uninvited call. She had to leave Cagayan de Oro as soon as possible.

  It was an anomaly. The suburb she was living in was named Patag and also the location of Camp Evangelista, the Military Headquarters of the Philippines Army. The provincial Philippines Constabulary at nearby Camp Alagar in Lapasan was unlikely to be involved in any military raid. If the local Army Group at Camp Evangelista was assigned to assist, she would probably be warned by Colonel Villaluz, head of Camp Evangelista. She would then know exactly how long she had to escape. But if Villaluz had been compromised by a prisoner's confession he might try to make promotional capital out of the situation and arrest her. She decided not to trust the old links any longer.

  Villaluz had been getting a sizeable regular pay from her for years. Though they had a professional respect for each other it did not run to genuine friendship. He had occasionally visited to play mah-jong with numerous others. Villaluz had been selling arms from the Camp Evangelista armoury to Warvic's group for years. He did not know Warvic's true position within the NPA or that it was one of Warvic's lieutenants organising the buying arms from him. Villaluz only thought of Warvic as the go-between for payment. If Villaluz was to die in conflict with the NPA, it would be from a rifle and bullet he had supplied.

  The NPA was one of the few rebel groups in the world fully armed with American weapons instead of weapons from Communist or former Communist bloc countries. Whatever new American weapons the Armed Forces of the Philippines obtained, a supply of them were soon in the hands of the NPA

  Warvic could only watch while her aides packed to make ready for her escape. At the new safe house she would have ample time to consider both her and the organisation's future. Sitting, watching and waiting, as others rushed around her in organised haste.

  She was proud of her little crew. They had been with her for years and there would be time later to thank them. For now she just let them do a job they had done many times before with and without her. She had to exercise maximum self-control. Asking unnecessary questions of them about the packing would hinder, not help, the situation. Nevertheless she was keeping a wary eye on proceedings.

  Her senior aide, Raul de los Reyes, wanted her to leave immediately news of the deaths and captures broke, though he knew what her response would be. She would not run without them, and they knew it. But protocol, loyalty and their admiration demanded that they give her the choice.

  Warvic had already begun to think about re-organisation. This would be formalised and documented in Iligan, in Muslim territory.

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  AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND

  T.A. thought about Malou and wondered what she felt about the news of the NPA's demise. It would have been in the newspapers in Cebu, a major city in the southern islands of the Philippines known as the Visayas. He would ask her to send newspaper clippings but did not expect his request to receive any response. She tended to ignore any questions he asked.

  T.A. often wondered how she could have passed her Commerce Degree if she was never prepared to answer questions directly. He thought commerce required logic, but she seemed illogical and often closed minded. He told her she was over qualified for her job as a teller at the Philippines National Bank, but as he subsequently learned, many of the tellers were graduates. It was a stable income.

  Their meeting on his first visit to the Philippines resulted in frustration when he had tried to cash travellers’ cheques at the bank branch where she was working. He had intentionally picked Malou as the teller he wanted to serve him. She was average height, for a Filipina. Her square shoulders matched the width of her hips and her waist was trim. He had seen her legs as she had walked away from the counter. They were shapely without excess muscle. Her black hair must have been about shoulder length, difficult to judge because it was tied back in a pony tail which swung back and forth as she walked. She did not have a typical Filipina face. There was a hint of strong Spanish blood reflected in her paler skin and her less flattened and slightly more pointed nose.

  It was her dark brown eyes that pulled him in. Despite that, he felt she was being officious or testing him for a reaction, which she got, but not as she had expected. To T.A., the bank required too much unnecessary evidence regarding proof of ownership of the cheques. After his insisting on seeing the manager, the problem was sorted out. The evidence was part of bank policy to combat fraud in counterfeit travellers’ cheques.

  T.A. apologised to Malou for his outburst and asked her if she would join him for dinner as a token of apology. He was surprised that she accepted.

  Her general silence and evasiveness to his questions over dinner annoyed him. He excused that as shyness and lack of English skills the first time. But even on subsequent visits she seemed reluctant to reveal her thoughts. She had the same habit when she responded to his letters. Despite all that, he began to think about her constantly. On his second visit she had taken leave from the bank and stayed with him when they visited Apuao Grande. By next March it would be two years since he had seen her.

  He had only recently begun to think about where he would like to go next holiday. He did want to see Malou again. Besides, he was between relationships at the moment anyway. Perhaps he should think seriously about whether Malou might be what he really wanted.

  Getting leave would not be a problem. His current contract expired in March. He would renew his option on an extension of contract by having a different re-start date. He had six months to plan and save for a holiday though he really had only one destination in mind. He would not tell her of his plans just yet. Last time he had told her he was going to the Philippines, he had to cancel his plans. She had been upset and angry with him for quite a while after that. He had broken the promise to be with her on her 30th birthday.

  He abandoned any further work on the report and selected his bedtime reading from his collection of travel books. He picked up two on the Philippines and the large fold-up wall map of south-east Asia. Tomorrow he would find out if the private house he had used twice before on Apuao Grande would be available in March and April. Yes, he would like to visit there again. It was remote, isolated from the rest of the country's troubles, unpolluted by vehicles, and quiet. By March it would be just what he needed.

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  ILIGAN, WEST MINDANAO.

  The transfer to Iligan went smoothly. To Warvic, Iligan was a halfway house between Muslim and Christian territory. The population was an equal mix of both faiths. Most of the Catholic population considered it as Muslim dominated territory. Despite the religious differences, there had never been problems here like those of the Bosnians, Croats and Serbs in Yugoslavia.

  Any problems in Mindanao were settled in the rain forest as Catholics, Muslims, NPA, private armies of landowners and large groups of bandits all had their own cause to push or greed to satisfy.

  A few kilometres further west of Iligan was Marawi, capital of Lanao Province, where at least ninety percent of the population was Muslim. Marawi was a respected centre of learning, being the home of the Mindanao State University, nationally simply known as MSU

  Warvic, soon after her arrival, called on one of the local Muslim Separatist leaders, Suraido Arompak. He was a graduate with honours in Political Science from MSU. His studies of other styles of politics
almost made him a soul mate of Warvic. Despite their religious and educational differences they were firm friends.

  Warvic had never had the opportunity to attend university. Her family's poverty, and the death of her father when she was 14, meant that as the oldest child she had to leave school immediately to find work to help support the family. She was pleased that her father had died; at least he was no longer there to sexually molest her. She was, however, angry with the manner of his death. He had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by a group of anti-Communist vigilantes and summarily executed. It was common knowledge among the poor that the hooded vigilantes were off duty soldiers. She was expected to support her six sisters and three brothers. Her mother had been too sick to do anything other than the most basic household chores for three years before that. After her father's death, Warvic's teen years and early twenties were all spent providing, planning and budgeting for the family's needs. It did not take long for outsiders to recognise and acknowledge her as the head of the family.

  In the little time that she did have to herself, she read any books she could get her hands on. In the later years she had taken a keen interest in her country's politics. She could not understand the Marcos era, or how the former 'First family' of the Philippines could live in such extremes of affluence while their people suffered such poverty.

  After putting two of her sisters through university she thought about finding a life of her own. During a short lived relationship with a young medical graduate, also disenchanted with the politics of the country, they both fled into the jungles of North Cotabato in South Mindanao, near Davao City. There, they joined with the growing number of idealists forming part of the New Peoples' Army (NPA). In the few years Warvic spent in the jungle, she saw people from all walks of life come and go. The disenchantment among the population had driven them to the arms of the NPA. Then, after a time, disenchantment with the discomforts and lifestyle in the jungle caused the bulk to return to the cities.

  She met Suraido Arompak by chance at a prisoner swap with the Muslims. This was at the time Warvic was with the Ilagas. They were a group formed in Mindanao by a Christian Ilongo settler to fight the Moros. The Muslim Moros had their own military arm called the Black-shirts. Both sides were well equipped with weapons. Despite Warvic and Suraido being on different warring sides there was an immediate rapport between them. There was never any physical attraction, just an immediate respect and admiration. It was a friendship that not only survived, but grew over the intervening years.

  It was from Arompak that she learned that Colonel Villaluz, with his own men and a few PATAG soldiers had arrived unannounced at her previous hideaway in Cagayan de Oro. Some of her neighbours were arrested, tortured and killed for failing to notify the local militia of Warvic's presence as an NPA sympathiser.

  Colonel Villaluz’s hypocritical action angered Warvic to the extent that she vowed to herself that he would die for this act. His attempt to cover his own corruption had caused injury and death to innocent civilians. Some of those arrested were well known to Warvic, but she was sure that none of them knew of her NPA activities. Many though had seen Villaluz visit her. Those neighbours were eliminated as witnesses to Villaluz's indiscretions.

  To most people Warvic was an enigma. She was not at all attractive. Not quite, but nearly bordering on ugly. Yet the men who kept her company always seemed to be handsome. Those who knew her very well, also knew of her bi-sexuality. Her sex with men gave her a feeling of control, power and superiority over men in general. But it was her sex with other women that gave her physical and emotional fulfilment.

  Warvic was of average height. Most people would call her dumpy or tubby. The loose fitting clothes that she wore were certainly the same as those worn by chubby or fat people, but underneath was a solid and well muscled body. If she had been in the Eastern European sector during her hey-day in the 1980's, she would have been taken for a female shot-putter. In contrast to her teens, however, she was a bit shorted-winded through her excessive smoking. Something she had taken up after leaving home in her twenties.

  Now she was in her forties, she often felt she should be doing more about keeping fit. Her occasional excursions into the hills, to visit NPA military jungle camps, had shown others that she was not only able to keep up, but generally lead. Warvic alone knew that it was only her determination that kept her going. It was always at a cost of great muscular pains suffered secretly for days afterwards. She now found any excuse to send deputies on errands to the hills. Her last jungle trip had been to Esperanza in the Misamis Oriental part of Mindanao. It had taken her weeks to recover. She feigned normalcy through all the jungle trekking. Her walking style had always been masculine and swaggering. To others, unaware of the screaming muscles in her body, her walk seemed more macho than usual.

  The accident in which she broke her leg caused her private embarrassment. It had not happened during a glorious act in the name of freedom, but simply falling into an uncovered drainage hole during a monsoon shower. Apart from missing the fatal meeting, it had not inconvenienced her too greatly. It just meant that her mah-jong playing friends had to visit her instead of sharing the venues around. The only other thing she missed was her occasional Sunday gambling at the cock-fights. She had long ago got used to being one of the very few women attending. Generally she came away from the cockfights winning more often than she lost.

  Her NPA group, as did all of the others in Mindanao, currently maintained an unholy alliance with several of the different groups of Muslim Separatists. It was more than a mere acknowledgment and acceptance of each group's right to exist. It was recognition that they really had one common enemy in the central government. When required it had resulted in unofficial co-operation between the NPA and some Muslim groups, as was now happening. Although Suraido Arompak was head of only one Muslim group, his power was respected by them all. None would intentionally contradict him or flout his authority. It was a mystery to Warvic why the Muslims could not unite under a common cause instead of fragmenting as they had. United they would be a powerful force.

  Her personal announcement of her arrival to Suraido Arompak had a twofold purpose. Firstly to show there was nothing covert about her entry into Muslim territory. Secondly her presence in his patch left him with an unwritten obligation to protect her and her group. This obligation was willingly accepted. Suraido had been fed through the NPA network many times when he travelled outside his own spheres of influence. Local Muslim militants were aware that Warvic's group was under the protective wing of Arompak, and would respect her as an honoured guest. Warvic knew that for a long time she would have to depend on it.

  She wondered how to resurrect the movement. For now, she was the movement, and was its leader by default. There were no rivals or challengers for the position. She considered all those killed at the meeting or jailed were too conservative anyway, just as they had considered her too reactionary and too militaristic. They had grown too comfortable in their positions to take any real or decisive action that might put their life-style at risk, only paying lip service to the aims of the movement. Those divergences had all finished with the explosion at Mercedes.

  Warvic was not a Marxist, Communist, Leninist, or any of the theoreticians. Warvic was firstly a Filipino. She believed in her country and her people. The Peoples Power Movement after overthrowing Marcos in 1986 should have been allowed to follow its natural course. Instead, the initial impetus and ensuing dream of hope for change had been diverted away from its roots by some weak-minded and corrupt politicians. Cory Aquino had failed her people by failing to rid the country and government of the corruption. Cory did have the people's mandate and hopes early on and even had full military support at the very beginning. Even the army rebel reformists, such as Colonel 'Gringo' Honasan, Colonel Noble and their personal supporters within the army, knew that Cory had to act quickly. If she had accepted Gringo and Noble as allies instead of treating them as threats, then adopted many of their pol
icies, the spontaneous eruption of the People Power Movement would have seen the real Philippines emerge.

  This had been another area where Warvic seemed forever in disagreement with her now deceased or imprisoned colleagues. They felt a complete change in the style and system of government was needed. Warvic did not. Calmly and resolutely she argued against their ideas without managing to change anyone's opinion. She was never worried they might act on their plans. They had become armchair warriors.

  She often wondered how she kept her position within the organisation, although she really did know. Her organisational talents were the envy of all her compatriots. They would bounce ideas, plans and schemes off her. They knew that she might not politically agree with the action being planned, yet would still throw her organisational ability behind it.

  Now alone, without dissenters, she could use her talent to plan her own style New Peoples Army.

  Before embarking on an agenda she had to formalise the plan, its aims, its pitfalls, and its consequences. She began to think deeply about how to upset the immediate and long term goals of the existing government. It had economic strategists working on a series of development blueprints to remedy the present and ongoing stagnation of the economy. To Warvic, this was a facade to create different ways to line the pockets of the same bureaucrats and their cronies.

  Little had really changed since 1986 after Marcos. Many of the same officials were still getting their cuts out of government contracts. The only changes were in the numbers and some of the names of the parasites. In many areas the numbers had increased. No government action or policy had succeeded. Whenever one area of corruption was uncovered, two more would spring up in its place. The Philippine Commission on Good Government, set up to root out the malpractice, had lost its way, blinded by personal vendettas, infighting and some of their own corruption. It had been set up by Aquino in good faith, and it was all being done 'for the benefit of you, my Filipino people.'