I purposely wrote this review of the book in Cebuano, which grows out of my desire to translate it into the local language so that comrades and the masses who can’t understand English may have a semblance of flesh and blood oneness with the revolutionary Louie Jalandoni in his dream and aspiration for the liberation of Filipino people.
Two revolutionary virtues are evident in this book. First: the exemplary revolutionary life of Louie Jalandoni. And second: the medium — kind of revolutionary too — read-friendly because of its popular style – komiks! The more you tread on the narrative terrain of the biography the more you get engaged like you’re watching a video or a film! Even a child who cannot read can follow the story!
The revolutionary life of Louie touches us in profound and awesome ways. There are episodes filled with graphic scenes of the miserable plight of the hacienda farmworkers in Negros which deeply moved Louie to tears of empathy. There are also outrageous episodes which could inflame your heart to extreme anger seeing the heartless trampling of human rights of the masses whom Louie and his wife Connie communed with. In several pages of the book are suspenseful but heartening scenes of the enraged masses rising from their oppressed and exploited conditions. Breathtakingly engaging too are the couple’s rendezvous with life-and-death perils as they worm through thick and thin hours and spaces in their tasks in the revolutionary underground. Sometimes these are overtaken by glorious exalting events of triumphs and successes in some actions fought side by side with the masses.
After seeing and reading the komiks narrative of Louie’s revolutionary life, one cannot escape the instantaneous reflective glance into one’s own life journey. And because you happen to be on the same road as a fellow traveler’ it’s inevitable that you are prompted to view your own history in your mind’s looking-glass.
There was a short-lived occasion when I had a chance to rub shoulders with Louie during the early days of the martial law period. His gentle unassuming ways are what readily catch your attention— a natural and integral part of his personhood. Humility and gentleness that serve as the scabbard of the revolutionary ideals for which he commits his life and devotes his whole time and energy. Through time this exemplary virtues prove to be a formidable weapon in his revolutionary tasks especially as head of the negotiating panel of the NDFP.
What attracts my eyes as they travel through the episodic paths of the narrative is this succinct message. When he decided to embark on the path of the revolution he summed up one’s life’s worth thusly –
“Sometimes we make the decisions that shape us. Sometimes our decisions are made for us when we choose to respond to what we see and experience.”
“Either way our lives change. And what we make of our lives can also affect others, good or bad.”
“A life well-lived can make a profound difference.”
Truly, the decisions Louie made for his life have moved the lives of many others in profound ways. As a scion of a rich landlord family, who went through a ’happy-go-lucky’ episode in his youth, then entered priesthood, and later on embraced a life of struggles and sacrifices, his life story is not an ordinary anecdote.
Ever since that first step on the road of the national democratic revolution until today his life has been an unceasing journey, his fists constantly upraised in unfaltering spirit of struggle. One cannot help but cry – You’re a shining beacon, Ka Louie! Mabuhay ka!
