I was apprehended at the Catbalogan, Samar marketplace, about 9 P.M. on March 26, 1982. Invited for a conversation by complete strangers, I politely declined, saying that I had business to attend to. At gunpoint, however, I was made to board a motorcycle between two men and told that I would be brought to the police precinct.

When the motorcycle bypassed the precinct, despite my reminder to the man in front of me, I jumped off and ran towards the church.

I heard three shots fired. The two men and about six others from a Sakbayan chased me and surrounded me in the church courtyard. I cried “help” a dozen times, but the men carried me off by my legs and arms, threw me across the backseat of the Sakbayan, punched me twice in the ribs and stomach, blindfolded me, ordered me to stop shouting, and then one of them sat on my legs.

In this condition I was brought in their vehicle to a place three minutes away and from which the church bells and vehicles driving along a smooth road were clearly audible. Here I was detained against my will about 24 hours.

As soon as I was seated in a chair, my kidnappers commenced their “tactical interrogation.”

I immediately demanded the return of my eyeglasses. In response they took away my wristwatch. My glasses had fallen off when my captors lifted me bodily in the church courtyard. I was hoping a priest or policeman would find the spectacles and be able to identify whoever retrieved these from them and in this way my family would discover the identity of my kidnappers.

I also asked for a lawyer of my choice. I informed my captors that what they were doing was illegal and improper. One voice replied, “Do not be like Baltazar Pinguel who reminded us of his constitutional rights. Do not tell us about the Geneva agreement. These are meaningless to us. You are in our hands and nobody knows this. We can do with you as we please. If you do not cooperate, we will make you disappear.”

Another voice said, “The longer you hold out, the worse it will be for you. Others have held out for a month, but after that they ‘broke’ and told all. Why suffer for one month?”

I was boxed repeatedly in the ribs and stomach. My head was banged against a post or a wall half a dozen times. My face was slapped numerous times.

Once when the men were particularly brutal, I told them they were not behaving like officers and gentlemen. For this one of them, obviously a high-ranking officer from the authority he exercised over the others struck me viciously with what felt like a 2” x 2” piece of wood on my chest and back. This happened while I was seated, wrists bound behind the back of my chair and shoes and socks removed.

I doubled up in pain but managed to retain consciousness.

Three times my pants and briefs were torn off me and my wrists bound behind my back. In this condition I once felt wire tied around my penis and was told that electricity would be applied, but this was not done. I was told subsequently I was lucky Catbalogan had a brownout that night.

Another time a cutting instrument was made to touch my penis which would be removed, my tormentors threatened, after which they would seize my wife in Manila and rape her.

The third time I was trouserless, a drunken man, apparently of high rank, grabbed me by the head, dragged me across the room, threw me on the ground, ordered me to get up, threw me down again and then forced me to stand against a wall for hours. While ants crawled up my legs, one man slapped my penis with what felt like a piece of plywood, saying, “Admit that you are a communist.” Another pinched my left nipple painfully and a third tickled me in the ribs until he tired.

Twice I was threatened that I would be brought out to sea and there forced to cooperate. I heard orders given for a pump boat to be readied. However, the threat was not carried out.

Once I was asked if I had ever eaten “bowels.” This turned out to be just an empty – and dirty – threat.

A few hours after I ‘broke,’ my tormentors brought me, blindfolded, gagged and handcuffed, to a safehouse of theirs several hours away. I discovered later that the safehouse was located in Tabuan, Tacloban City, beside the residence of a family that makes tinapa.

I was kept in a windowless room one meter wide by two meters long in the basement of the safehouse. After a day the blindfold was removed, the handcuffs and gag having been taken away earlier. But I was detained in this room for about five days.

The place was so stuffy that the interrogators preferred to sit outside in the corridor while they asked their questions, rather than stay with me inside the room.

I was no longer beaten in the safehouse and the treatment I received was generally civil. Certain physical hardships continued and I was often the victim of the cruel sense of humor and the inefficiency of my captors.

Interrogation was continuous for about five days. More than a dozen men took turns questioning me. I was deprived of sleep. When I would doze off in my chair in the process of answering a question, I would be awakened, given coffee to drink and a cigarette.

On the fifth day or so – my body still aching from the beating on the first day and my mind in a daze due to sleeplessness – I was shown a “sworn statement” and asked to sign it. I refused politely.

“Nobody knows you are with us, so we will stage an ambush in Sta. Rita; don’t worry, your corpse will be turned over to your family,” I was told.

“But there were gunshots on the 26th,” I replied. “How are you going to explain that incident away?”

They said, “That’s easy. We will produce a body and have witnesses testify that this was the person we apprehended that night.”

I sued for time to think things over.

The second time they sought my signature on the manufactured statement, I demanded certain changes. They agreed. So, I signed. Later they changed their minds and demanded I sign the original. I refused.

The third time, a smooth-talking interrogator explained to me, “This is for your own good. Your signature will mean you will not be salvaged, you will meet your family alive. Don’t worry about legal repercussions. Although I’m no barrister, I assure you that this document cannot stand up in court. No one in his right mind will believe you waived your rights and signed a self-incriminating statement freely. It will be easy to prove you signed under duress.”

“Then why should I sign? What does the military stand to gain?” I asked.

He answered, “Gen. (Salvador) Mison wants to have something to show the church people who are asking about you. He thinks a signed statement in which clergymen are implicated will silence them.”

I signed the statement then.

After I signed, conditions improved. I was allowed to defecate and bathe for the first time. I was transferred to a bedroom and assigned a bed. I was allowed to play Scrabble. My transistor radio was returned but ‘borrowed’ from time to time. I was permitted to read the novel I had with me, another novel owned by an investigator, a fellow ex-seminarian, a book of poems and two dictionaries.

Most of my meals were still taken in the basement bedroom which was locked from the outside most of the time. I still had to urinate into a bottle, but now I had two bottles, not just one, so that the urine overflowed less frequently. Every fourth day or so, I was allowed the use of the toilet, bathroom and kitchen where I did my laundry.

My request to be transferred to Manila so that I could be visited by my family was repeatedly denied.

From about the tenth day onwards, my kidnappers often examined the scars on my chest and back. They gave me medicines to hasten healing. They advised me to recover as fast as possible if I wanted to see my family sooner.

Twice during the last week of my detention in Tacloban, I was placed in the basement bodega for hours. The reason given to me was that they were bringing in another detainee and didn’t want us to see each other.

On April 19, 24 days after my illegal apprehension and start of detention, I was brought to Catbalogan in what felt like an airconditioned Beetle, again blindfolded and handcuffed. The vehicle left Tacloban before dawn, so scared were my captors of an ambush along the way.

Later that morning, I was brought to court and at long last reunited with my wife and my mother and once again allowed to savor the gloriousness of the sunlight.