God of the Oppressed

 

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God of the Oppressed

by RDLiporada

Copyright by RDLiporada 2012

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

This book is printed in the United States.

This is dedicated

To all those whose blood

They used to paint

On a canvass of life

That in their brush with death,

Others admire

The truest art of life.

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1 Kudiamat

Cordillera Mountains

Northern Luzon, Philippines

February 1977

It would not be another dawn in a village in the deepest nooks of the Cordillera Mountains.

The stars just vanished as the moon again lost its battle against the sun. Rays slashed through the skies, creeping slowly to blanket the bosom of the waves upon waves of mountain ranges with a new swath of morning light. Very soon, the sun would again exert its radiance over the havens of the Igorots, giving them new life to their old ways of tending their lives since those times when no one can even remember when their forefathers carved the faces of the mountains into terraces that sprout their rice; since those times from when their forests blessed them with fruits and the wild they only have to hunt.

For centuries, darkness and light have struggled to alternately dominate the sanctuaries of these mountain people. Pushed from the lowlands by Malays who came from the seas, the Igorots embraced the mountains as their enclaves, bowing only to Kabunian, the supreme god of all the other anitos who bestowed upon them all the blessings from the earth, the rivers, and the skies.

And they were free…

…until those with Krag rifles encroached upon them to which their spears, bows and arrows came to naught; to invade their mountains, to supplant their gods with other gods, to blanket their minds with beliefs that they were still free – free to extract their gold not for themselves but for those who came with Krag rifles and free to beg on their own mountains of gold.

It is dawn but it is still dark.

The boy Kudiamat is dreaming of the river. Its ripples glistened underneath the moonlit night as its crackles whimpered, splashing over whetted rocks. Then the sun sprung from nowhere and stung the moon with its rays until the moon melted behind the mountains. Victorious, the sun radiated with all its might and descended closer to earth burning the river to a boil, to a raging boil, until the river rose to a growl.

The waters grappled their way up the mountains, roaring, unmindful of the shrieking trees that toppled with the onslaught of the rushing torrents. Boulders rolled up the mountains flicked by slapping walls of water. The river thundered, dragging the uprooted trees and boulders up the village. They snaked, roaring, growling, underneath the stilted huts of the village. The trees and boulders smashed on the stilts with deafening thuds.

Bog-bog-bog.

Kudiamat jolted up. In the dark hut, sliced only with beams of sunlight through tiny holes on the walls, the boy felt the wooden floor beneath his mat shudder with ear-piercing thuds.

Still in his sonorous state, he said to himself, it cannot be the river.

Bog-bog-bog.

Luktan yu datoy. Nu haan, bar-ba-en mi datoy nga ridaw,” A gruff voice commanded behind the door threatening to smash it down if those inside the hut will not open up.

Bog-bog-bog.

The pole that barred the door rattled.

Kudiamat felt himself picked up. His face smacked on the bare breasts of his mother. The woman huddled him with his sister and father at the corner far from the door. He felt the thumping of his mother’s heart. They were fast, faster than the pounding on the door. As his mother set him down, his sister clutched him to bury his face beneath her blossoming breasts. Her heart pounded, too, in dissonance with the pounding on the door.

Bog-bog-bog.

Ukin-nayo, manglukat kayo,” the voice cursed.

There were also wailing from outside of the house. Gunfire.

Asin-nu kata dagita?” the boy’s mother asked in a mid-sob trembling voice.

For sure, “chuldados,” the father said. Soldiers.

The pounding on the door became more turbulent; the rattling of the pole more berserk, the spikes that fastened the slots creaked, almost like shrieking. The pounding persisted until it reached a deafening crescendo. In a final smash, the pole slammed on the floor and the door thundered on the planks.

Dawn light flashed into the hut.

The Igorot family tightened their huddle with the old man wrapping his wife and children with his scrawny arms. Their skins, barely covered with loincloths, glistened, struck with the stringent beams of light. Only the old man was not crying but his eyes betrayed an expectation beyond being hurt, maybe even skirting death for he has heard of these chuldados before and what they could do and what they might do.

Knowing them – soldiers, puppet soldiers – made the old man resolve, as he had resolved when he had learned for whom the soldiers were for, not to fear whatever might befall him and his family for to fear the puppets would be to give in to those who have enslaved them for centuries, who have stripped them off their dignity, and would want to deprive them of their realized path to liberty.

Yet, the old man still trembled when a camouflaged stocky soldier sprang into the hut with his muddy boots. He cuddled a Browning automatic rifle. Bandoliers crisscrossed his chest. A lowlander, he would be one of those who look down upon the Igorots – most effective in the divide and rule configuration of enslaving the whole nation for which the Igorots are but a subset of the oppressed.

Yes, the old man still trembled for the soldier bore the badge of the Lawin. He belonged to the crack Eagle Battalion emblematic of bully eyes that could spot preys from miles up high in the sky and with talons, so sharp, that could slash their snared without mercy.

Yet, though the old man still trembled, he had the resolve. He resolved to be resolute, to stand by the truth he had resolved to be the truth, to muster all the courage against the onslaught of whatever may come in defense of the truth and be steadfast for the sake of freedom not only for himself, his family, but for all his generations to come.

The soldier hassled towards the man and jerked him off from his family. He slammed the old man to kneel at the center of the hut and poked him at his temple with the gun’s nozzle. The old man’s eyes rolled in terror as the nozzle’s eye squinted beside his.

Pang-nga-asi, haan,” the old man pleaded for mercy.

The old woman pleaded with the soldier, “Pang-nga-asi…”

Kudiamat and his sister remained clutched in a tight embrace, wailing.

A less stocky soldier entered the hut. He wore a pair of sunglasses. A holstered .45 dangled by his hip. A lieutenant’s patch was smacked on his lapel. He towered over the old man and, with arms akimbo, said in the vernacular Ilocano, “why did you not open the ridaw right away? Are you hiding Alinew here?”

The old man shook his head. “A…a…adi…ko ma…ma-awatan,” he said that he did not understand.

“Liar,” the lieutenant booted the man’s chest thrashing him crumpled to the floor with a muffled scream.

The old woman shrieked and threw herself between the soldier and her husband. “Adi…adi...” she pleaded.

The lieutenant grabbed the woman’s hair. “You, you tell me where Alinew is or I will have all of you shot.”

Adi…di…ko ma-awa-tan.”

He whacked the woman’s face with his knuckles. She slammed on the floor, her mouth streaked with blood.

Kudiamat and his sister sprang to their mother’s side. As they did so, the scanty luped skirt of the lass slithered up her thighs.

Lifting his sunglasses up his forehead, the lieutenant approached the lass. Grabbing her by the elbow, he lifted her up. He ran his hand through her long hair, stopping short above her breasts. Her nipples, barely curtained by strands, jutted in their innocence.

In a much gentler voice, the lieutenant asked, “How about you? Do you know where Alinew is?”

The lass shook her head.

“You don’t want the huge reward for his capture?”

She started sobbing again and shook her head more vigorously.

“Maybe, you are rebels, too, then, huh.”

She bit her lips.

He grabbed her by the nape and forced his tongue into her mouth.

The old woman sprang up and tugged for her daughter. Kudiamat grabbed the lieutenant’s thigh, trying to pry him away from his sister.

The stocky soldier hurried to jump upon them.

“Sarge, throw them out,” the lieutenant said.

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said, grabbing and dragging the old woman by the hair. At the door, he kicked her midribs and she tumbled out, screaming.

The sergeant bolted next at Kudiamat and yanked him by the throat off the lieutenant. He dragged the boy and flung him to fly out of the door.

Kudiamat’s loincloth tails flapped with the wind as he felt himself flying. He curled himself and dropped on the ground on a roll, banging on a fence of a pigpen. Though in a confused state, he crawled around and away from the pen to hide behind the nearby bushes.

From there, he saw the sergeant dragging his father down the ladder from the hut.

The boy also saw other soldiers rounding up the other villagers. Their rifle butts smashed on jaws and crushed on chests. Their combat boots pummeled stomachs and backs. Their hands clawed at hairs, breasts, and beneath scanty lufeds.

The soldiers snarled, “where is Alinew, where is that communist priest?”

Inside the hut, the lieutenant had ripped the lass’s remaining lufed. She had turned into a shrieking, sobbing, struggling bundle of flesh. Cornering her, he snarled like a dog whose nails dug welts around her breasts and mashed at her nipples. He sucked at those jutting innocence, slurping like a feasting beast. Then he straddled her, wrenching his pants off not bothering to remove his boots nor sunglasses.

He plunged into her, into her innermost sanctuary, into her very soul, into her very sanity.

After a while she stopped struggling and began to moan. She wrapped her arms across his neck and heaved her loins to meet his thrusts. She kissed his neck, pressed his head down for his cheeks to touch her cheek. She turned her head and kissed him by the ear.

The pain the lieutenant felt had a thunderclap flash that enveloped him and sent him into an unnerving daze. In a fuzzy whirlwind, time seemed to have blurred until he found himself still pressing at the trigger of his still smoking gun which have now emptied of its fires of death. The hut’s floor and walls are now splattered with blood. The bundle of flesh no longer moaned, shrieked or sobbed.

He clutched his dangling ear which was sticky with blood like the blood that was on the lass’s lips that have now quivered to a mocking smile.

He rushed out of the hut and ordered his men, “Kill them, kill them all. Burn this village, burn everything.”

Kudiamat, hearing the lieutenant and seeing him like a wounded growling dog, slithered far into the thickets. At a distance, the staccato of guns and wailing vanished from faint to none. Glancing back, he saw, over the tree tops, thick smoke curling up to the sky.

He hurried towards the river.

He must reach Alinew.

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2 Alinew

It was Sunday.

Deep in the forests of the Cordilleras, trees rustled with misty breeze and reached for the sky as they have always towered every morning with their roots in commune with the grounds for centuries now. Mayas and other birds fluttered from tree to tree tweeting tunes of liberty as sun rays sliced through curtains of leaves and breaking into streaks of light to bathe nooks and clearings for renewal of beginnings after darkness have succumbed to the morning light.

Alinew got up and folded his sackcloth mat and scattered the grass that had served as his cushion during the night. He unwound the towel over his head which helped him shield his head from the cold and his ears from mosquitoes’ hovering snouts. In its place, he tied a not so clean handkerchief over his head to keep his long hair from dropping over his eyes. He ran his scarred hands over his goatee which was sparse like his uneven mustache. A rosary without a cross dangled from his neck. He brushed with his hands his faded denim pants through which his calloused knees peeped through the strands.

He snatched his goat-skinned knapsack which had served as his pillow and snapped it on his back. Next, he grabbed his M-16.

He ambled towards a rock by the right side of a clearing. Around 15 men and women were already milling close to the rock. Another twenty or so were scattered in various repose of waking up at the peripheries of the clearing. They wore various shades of tattered sweaters and jackets that helped them survived the cold in the thickets. Also lugging guns of varied lengths and calibers, others still dragged their calloused bare feet over crackling carpets of broken twigs and snapping dry leaves towards the rock.

There are still those who believe and for them, on that rock, Alinew will perform the mass.

He will say mass although he no longer believes in what he used to believe. He still says mass but no longer just to commemorate the transfiguration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ and a renewal of covenants to serve one’s fellowmen. To him, it has become a reminder of Christ’s sacrifice to be emulated – a shedding of blood in the struggle for the poor, the hungry, naked, sick and oppressed. It has become a celebration of the last supper for anyone’s meal in the struggle could be one’s final feast before a battle.

For what would be more be glorious than to die in the service of the people as Christ died to save mankind? For if everyone must die, why not die for the greatest glory as Christ have shown? And as Christ have risen after his death, so shall one forever live in the hearts of the people one has served with one’s death.

And thus, he still says the rite whenever there is ample time, with or without a rock, so long as those who hunt him are not close to his heels.

Alinew snatched a hole-riddled plastic from his knapsack. From it, he gently drew a bible. Only tinges of its once golden laced brown cover could now be gleaned. He ruffled through the dog eared pages and began the rite.

He went through the motions like he had done not so long ago like he always did…kneel…sit…stand…May the Lord be with you…and with you also…Amen.

At the end the service, he gave the benediction, “Go find peace, the mass is ended.”

Long time ago, it was simply ‘go in peace, the mass is ended.’ Now it is ‘find peace’ for peace is the absence of tyrants and peace can only be achieved if war is waged and won against these tyrants.

Alinew replaced the bible into the plastic and into his backpack. He snatched his M-16 leaning on the rock and moved on like he had done everyday since he had transformed himself from what he had been to what he had become.

In this transformation, he had been rechristened after a tree. An alinew is lanky and tall. As a sapling, it is soft and delicate but would tower towards the sky and be pliant and strong.

He used to be delicate. Bred from the city, it took sometime for the hinterland’s harshness to mold him to be lanky, pliant and strong. He used to suck air through pursed lips when burning trails scorched his bare feet. He limped and slipped over sharp pebbles. He used to slip on rocks when crossing the river.

Now, Alinew ambled towards the campfire by the center of the clearing with his calloused soles, just part of his transformed soul.

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4 A Tactical Revenge

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6 Julius Madrigal

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7 Carlo Paterno

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8 Noel Altamonte

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10 The Vanishing Yuletide Season

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11 The Gifts

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13 A Wish for the Future

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21 The Great Crying Anito

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22 - Lumayang

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23 Meeting the Clerico-Fascist

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24 Bearers of Echoes

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25 - Pasistas

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26 A Disturbing Echo

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27 Development for Whom?

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28 To Appeal or to Fight?

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29 Another Appeal

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30 A Death in the Village

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31 The Mourning

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32 – The Sanctuary Lamp

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33 The Dawn

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34 An Ambush

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38 An Escape

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39 The Escape Goat

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40 Sister Aurencia

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41 Passing the Message

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42 Operation Zing

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43 Quarantined

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44 A Conflict

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45 A Justification

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47 An Outranking

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48 A Mental Torture

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49 A Betrayal

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50 The Vengeance

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~

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