Delfin Gonzalez in the Guerilla Movement

From the manuscript of Ken Ishikawa:

“After the Pacific War broke out and the Japanese Imperial Army succeeded in overrunning the last bastion of the US-Filipino forces on the island of Corregidor on 09 April 1941, the Japanese began their expansion to the south. On April 16, the Japanese landed on the island of Panay.  They began occupying the districts of La Paz, Molo, Jaro, and downtown Iloilo City, and started turning schools, civic buildings, and large houses into their garrisons…

“In order to raise the morale of the populace in Panay and to keep peace and order amidst enemy occupation, Tomas Confesor established a provisional provincial government. Because of his background in leading farms and haciendas, Delfin Gonzalez was named by Confesor as his Food Administrator for Jaro and Leganes, referred to by the resistance forces as Zone 9. 

“It was Delfin's duty to make sure that agricultural production continued in his territory despite enemy occupation and that the people living in the area and the guerillas operating in the sector would not want for food.  Delfin travelled across his area through rice paddies, carefully avoiding the dirt roads where squads of Japanese soldiers patrolled.  He would visit outlying farms where crops were being covertly grown.  When he was not travelling, Delfin tended his own farm with crops he used to supply the resistance.  Delfin chose to give the bulk of his harvests to the guerillas and the needy.  His son, RMG, remembers that the family subsisted mainly on lugaw or rice broth, seasoned only with either sugar or  salt, during the length of the Japanese occupation.

“Delfin did not lack for help in providing nourishment for his family; his sons, Sergio and Raul, learned how to forage for food.  They went to rice paddies, hunched, scanning the surface of the mud for mouths of tilapia or catfish.  Their tenants taught them the proper technique of catching catfish without getting stung by their barbs, a skill the boys happily applied in dozens of afternoons along the ditches and mudflats near the farms.  When villagers harvested mung bean in a field somewhere, Raul and Sergio looked for unharvested seeds along with other children and womenfolk.

“As if the routine his job demanded of him was not dangerous enough, Delfin would, now and then, get missives from his fellow guerillas inviting him to meetings.  Couriers from Confesor stashed orders and information meant for him in a hollow stalk of bamboo at a grove in a secret location near his house.  Once Delfin has memorized the instructions and the meeting places, he assigned Raul to hide these clandestine papers in the holes in the stilts of their house.  Whenever he set out for these gatherings, he would normally take someone to accompany him. One such companion was Sergio who walked with his father to Tacas to meet guerilla leaders there.

“Delfin knew that his role under Confesor's resistance government doubled the dangers for his family.  Aside from being responsible for his wife and brood of five children, he also had to worry for his sister-in-law Anita, her husband and her two children.  Because of this, Delfin was very careful not to rouse the suspicion of the Japanese.  Through his vigilance and caution, he was able to keep his guerilla and patriotic activities a secret.”

Delfin Gonzalez, Last Mayor of Jaro

From the manuscript of Ken Ishikawa:

“During the Commonwealth period, Delfin Gonzalez, the father of RMG, became a leader of the local branch of the Nacionalista Party.  It was the largest, political party in the country.  Its membership included Sergio Osmeña, Manuel A. Roxas and Manuel L. Quezon, an illustrious group which had managed to negotiate with the U.S. Senate the terms of Philippine Independence…

“The year 1940 was a divisive one for the Iloilo Nacionalista branch, as the brothers Eugenio and Fernando Lopez engaged in a bitter feud with Governor Tomas Confesor.  Three years prior, in the election of 1937, the Lopezes supported Confesor's governorship bid.  During his term proper, however, Confesor refused to provide the brothers concessions like the lifting of the bridge toll, which was hurting the Lopez-owned Panay Autobus.

“It was in this political atmosphere that Delfin's bid for the vice-mayoralty of Jaro found itself.  Using their political clout, the Lopezes sought help from Manuel L. Quezon against Confesor.  Quezon schemed to remove Confesor's political support from local party mates.  To this end, he sent Manuel A. Roxas to meet with local Nacionalistas.  Roxas came to Jaro and stayed over at Don Maximiano Jalandoni's mansion.  From there, he sent for Pablo Bion and Delfin Gonzalez, who were running mates.  Roxas relayed instructions from Quezon, who was their party's national chairman, to drop Confesor and instead opt for Dr. Timoteo Consing for the governorship of Iloilo.

“Delfin was faced with a difficult choice.  If he did not do as Quezon ordered, he was given the warning that they would not be able to sit as mayor and vice-mayor.  Should they support Dr. Timoteo Consing, they would only be ensuring that Iloilo's economy would fall to the clutches of the Lopezes.  Despite the conditions they were threatened with, Gonzalez and Bion, chose to side with Confesor, and made good their earlier promise to support him.

“Riding on a populist platform, the two charged into the campaign for Mayor and Vice-Mayor of Jaro. They raised their hands and charged with the battlecry “Gugma kontra Kwalta” (Love vs. Money).  The common people of Jaro believed in the changes Bion and Gonzalez promised and gave them the mandate.

“A few months into their administration, Pablo Bion left his political seat, making Delfin Gonzalez mayor of Jaro.  Quezon made true his threat and expanded the territory of Iloilo City to cover Molo and Jaro in 1941.  Jaro lost its status as a town with Delfin Gonzalez as its last sitting mayor.  Delfin would tell RMG to shun the fate of the reed swayed by the wind, and thus

a signature virtue of RMG is loyalty, which perhaps he sometimes bears to a fault.

“Delfin was promised by the incumbents a position as a councilor in the expanded Iloilo city but that never materialized.  Although it was a major blow to Delfin's career as a politician, he did not allow it to bring his family down.  The Gonzalezes would need to stick together as they were going to face a bigger storm; one which brought a rain of bullets, the thundering of artillery bombardment, and the lightning flash of bayonets.”

Sergio, Milagros, and Mario

We continue with excerpts from Ken Ishikawa's manuscript about Raul M. Gonzalez (b. 1930):

“Raul’s older brother, Sergio is known as the joker of the family.  He was the warmth to Ester's coolness.  Unlike his elder sister, Sergio loved to talk and to entertain guests.  His amiableness and outgoing nature, he got from Estrella.  Despite, having contrasting qualities with some of his siblings, Sergio was not a belligerent big brother.  Like his mother, he loved supporting his siblings in their endeavors…

“After Raul came Milagros and then Mario.  Milagros was the youngest girl of the family and therefore the three older siblings were protective of her.  For all her life, she's been called Baby.  As a little girl, Baby would often be at the tail of his brother Raul, hoping to be included in his latest adventure.  However, Raul would leave her behind because he often investigated the paddies and the fields for tadpoles, catfish and tilapia.  Mario, on the other hand, was always holding the hem of their mother, as he was too young to venture on his own…

“During the early days of the resumption of classes [after the end of the Second World War], Sergio, Raul, Baby and Mario were crossing the road.  The siblings were rushing to the other side because of the rains, and Mario got left behind in the middle of the crossing.  He got hit by a US army jeep.  The soldier immediately drove him to the Mission Hospital where he was tended by American doctors.  According to their diagnosis, Mario suffered from a dislocated shoulder because of the bump.  However, the overzealous physicians, in their desire to let the boy suffer no pain, injected him with morphine.  Whatever dosage it was that they used for the 7-year old Mario would prove to be a deadly one: the boy woke up no longer.

“It was a tragedy that tore the hearts of all family members.  Were they awarded with survival from the war only to suffer this cruel joke in the end?  Estrella took Mario's death most painfully.  After the burial, she would hold the boy's picture and cry for hours.

“From then on, the Gonzalezes' faith in the science of medicine was shaken.  They avoided hospitals, developed a distrust for doctors, and reviled painkillers and anaesthetics.  Whenever one of the children got sick, Delfin and Estrella asked a relative, Dr. Piamonte, to make a housecall.  If they were the ones who fell ill, they took their pain in stride.  One of Estrella's fingers once got broken but she never asked for a doctor to come to mend it.  That finger would stay crooked for the rest of her life.  Years later, Delfin would die of thrombosis.  Although his was still a treatable condition, Delfin allowed it to go worse until it killed him.

“Like his parents, Raul became suspicious of doctors and medicine.  Many years later, whenever his own children had to be hospitalized, he admonished against the use of anaesthesia.  Mario's needless death taught him that even experts make mistakes.  It was a physician’s lack of precision and forethought that killed his youngest sibling.”

Young Ester and Raul

Today’s entry is directly taken from Ken Ishikawa’s unpublished manuscript on the life of Raul M. Gonzalez.

“Family members referred to Ester as Inday because of her being a responsible eldest sister who looked after the four other children.  It was also obvious then that she was blossoming into a lovely girl.  Despite these graces, she did not overreach herself, but maintained a quiet and reserved exterior.  At first glance, people thought her to be 'suplada' – stand-offish and a little anti-social…Calm intelligence was a quality she shared with her father.  Her reserve and her intelligence combined to produce a mien that extended relatives would come to believe as a Gonzalez attribute…

“Like Ester, the boy Raul took after their father and his pensive aura.  However, Raul possessed an intelligence fiercer than his father's…It was this curious mind that would push the young Raul to constantly explore the world around him to the point that it got him into trouble with Delfin in more than one occasion.  Even when it was already time for the Angelus, six year old Raul would still be outside playing.

“One time, when Raul was seven years old, Ester garnered the honor of being the princess of their school festival and was therefore required to be in Iloilo city for a parade.  Estrella took Ester and Sergio and left little Raul behind in Jaro.  Raul, however, had other plans. With three centavos in his pocket, he rode a double-decked bus heading into the city.  His plan was to look for the family car and hope that his mother and siblings were there.

“Iloilo City in 1938 was already a large network of banks, warehouses, establishments, roads and side streets.  Raul wandered around that pulsing, concrete web until 11 in the evening, sometimes stooping and bowing his head, hoping to find coins that some passerby might have dropped.  Meanwhile in the house, Delfin and Estrella were frantic with worry.  His father was already coordinating with the police.  It was fortunate that Raul had found a taxi which brought him home.  Raul may not have found some shimmering coins but his father gave him two shiny beet red globes attached to his buttocks after the spanking was over.”

Raul M. Gonzalez (RMG)

Today, we begin a series on the life and thoughts of my father, Raul Maravilla Gonzalez (RMG).  This series is partly based on the unpublished research manuscript of Ken Ishikawa, a writer and an Asian Public Intellectual grantee.

Raul Gonzalez has served the Filipino people as an active opponent of dictatorship during the darkest days of Martial Law.  After the ouster of Ferdinand Marcos thru the February 1986 “People Power” event, Cory Aquino assumed the presidency and appointed RMG as Tanodbayan (Ombudsman), a responsibility he exercised until September 1988.

From 1995 to 2004, RMG served as Congressman of the Lone District of Iloilo City.  From 2004 to 2009, he headed the Department of Justice in the administration of Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Raul M. Gonzalez was born in Hacienda Caiñaman in La Carlota, Negros Occidental, on 03 December 1930.  His father, Delfin Gonzalez, was the administrator of the plantation, which was Spanish-owned.  Delfin was from Jaro, Iloilo.  His wife, Estrella Maravilla, worked as a teacher at the Colegio de San Jose, Jaro.  Delfin and Estrella had 6 children: Ester (Inday), Sergio, Herman, RMG, Milagros (Baby) and Mario.  Herman died as an infant, Mario died in childhood, and Ester passed away in 2001.