Charito Planas' 'escape' revisited

Dusting my library at home, I came across the book, Escape! Charito Planas: Her Story, which was written by Chic Fortich and published by New Day Publishers in 1991 — 20 years ago. Re-reading the book has further stirred my admiration for this gutsy woman lawyer who speaks her unbridled mind and lives out her conviction to free the oppressed, fight for freedom and justice, and help the poor.

Charito’s biography is a real thriller, the climax of which is her escape from the oppressive Marcos regime during the martial law years, in a single-motor-propelled banca to Sabah, where, after a month, she is “rescued” by American government authorities, and flown to New York to live in exile for 10 years.

From 1976 to l986, she lived the life not that of a “steak commando,” but of an impoverished freedom fighter, who, along with numerous anti-Marcos Filipino dissenters, spoke at rallies, denounced the dictatorship, lobbied in the US Congress for the stopping of military aid to the Philippines, and was interviewed on television, and written about in newspapers in New York for her revelations of the real situation in her home country. To keep from starving, she took on odd jobs - from telemarketing to demonstrating food products at supermarkets to delivering pizza. Despite cash and food donations from American and Filipino sympathizers, she had a meager income, and rented a poorly-ventilated and cold space in the basement of an apartment building.

What a contrast her life was before martial law. The youngest among eight children of Dona Concha, a whiz-of-an-entrepreneur who was able to build up a business of importing heavy machineries - and yet she was an illiterate who could not even read, and a father who was well-educated, Charito grew up in a luxurious setting, in a house in New Manila where the well-heeled lived. Her sister Adela was a beauty queen, and another, firebrand lawyer Carmen, was the first woman, at age 23, to be elected to the city council of Manila.

It was through Mameng that Charito was exposed to the vagaries of politics which she denounced, and from her mother Concha that she inherited traits of kindness and generosity so that she would feed hungry strangers and donate large sums to charity organizations.

Charito took up law at the UP, where she was twice elected grand archon of Sigma Delta Phi sorority. She displayed her practical genius by successfully holding the sorority’s expensive annual ball, not in a first-class hotel, but in Malacanang - a feat made possible by the daughter of President Carlos P. Garcia, being a Sigma Deltan. At the ball, instead of paying for an orchestra, Charito brought into the function room a record player and a lot of dance records; the evening was a success.

After graduation, she became involved with charitable and professional organizations. She helped provide desks and blackboards for use of kindergarteners, formed credit unions for poor women and innovative projects such as piglet and rabbit reversal. She also gave lectures on family planning in the barangays.

The degree of corruption in government, Charito told her biographer Chic Fortich, had so increased that citizens in the mid-60s welcomed the formation of the Citizens League for Good Government which had for its battlecry, “Honesty in government.” Six out of the eight CLGG candidates won seats in Quezon City’s 1959 election. They could have made more headway in corruption-cleansing if they had come up with a complete slate, with mayoral and vice-mayoral candidates. In 1963, Charito was fielded as vice-mayoral team mate of Charlie Albert, but both lost. In 1971, when the CLGG joined forces with the Liberal Party, its standard bearer was Charito, and Albert was the candidate for vice-mayor; again, the two lost. Norberto Amoranto, who had been in power for 20 years, won.

“I ran as mayor because I believe that as a mayor, I could do much for my country and my countrymen,” Charito said. “I had a program for the squatters. I had been telling others that we want to go to the moon, but we have not even reached our neighbors.” Her second attempt for the mayorship was in the local elections in November 1971, but she was runner-up to Amoranto, followed by Ishmael Mathay Jr.

It was in teach-ins and seminars of activists in her house on 12th street which she wholeheartedly offered for use, that her sense of nationalism was heightened. Her guests included Fr. Jesena, Father Romeo Intengan, the Sta.   Romana brothers, Linggoy Alcuaz, Rodel Rodis, Nelson Navarro, the late Ed Jopson, Eric Baculinao, Bobby Tiglao, Julius Fortuna and Jeremias Montemayor. Soon, her house was branded pugad ng mga aktibista (nest of activists).

 Statements from Soc Rodrigo, Benigno Aquino and Jose Diokno were reproduced in her printing machine. It came as no surprise then that her name would be on the list of people to be picked up when martial law was declared.

On Oct. 3, 1973, she was picked up at her house and detained in Camp Panopio, then in Camp Crame, in Quezon City, then at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig, Rizal. Ever the tidy cleaner, she wielded her broomstick and had the detainees cut the weeds on the lawns and cleaning the comfort rooms, and had them make some handicraft to make money.          

Military officials were not happy about Charito’s boosting up the detainees’ morale. They took her to another camp for solitary confinement, placed her in a 3x3 room, where the heat was unbearable, and insects were crawling over her. She suspected she was in the same maximum security detention center where Eugenio Lopez Jr., Serge Osmena, Jose Diokno and Ninoy Aquino were kept.

The time came when Charito had to be released to undergo hysterectomy at the Veterans Memorial Hospital. She was then allowed to go home but put under house arrest which was later lifted. But she remained actively opposed to the powers-that-be, helping form the Lakas ng Bayan (LABAN) political party, which fielded candidates for the 1978 Interim Batasang Pambansa elections.

She was under surveillance, but more fiercely this time. Friends convinced her to leave the country, via the southern backdoor, on a route taken by the former Raul Manglapus and his wife Pacita. It was a dangerous journey, through rough weather and dark nights, and Charito, filled with anxiety, kept praying for safety and guidance.

Newspaper accounts were all praise for Charito. The Daily Tar Heel wrote, “Filipino political dissident Charito Planas predicted the martial law government of President Ferdinand Marcos will be overthrown in the next decade.”

The Vancouver Express: “When she begins talking about the dictatorship in the Philippines, the steel comes through. You know you are in the presence of a remarkable woman.”

Charito was caught by surprise by the news that the EDSA Revolution on February 22-25, 1986, had driven the Marcoses out of the country. Chic writes: “For Charito the downfall of the Marcos regime was a fitting denouement for her years of exile in a distant land. She had finally been vindicated by her own people, and to her, that was its own reward. Now, she could really go home.”

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My e-mail: dominimt20002yahoo.com