In
my earlier piece, Too Young To Die, I wrote,“… in the mid 80’s, Davao was a
city in turmoil. The entire city became the battleground of a typical urban
guerrilla warfare like what you see on TV in other parts of the world. There
was a semblance of normalcy during the day. After sunset, commercial
establishments were already closed. At night, under the cover of darkness,
armed communist forces roam the streets ready to eliminate any perceived
enemies. The government forces returned in kind. Dozens of killings perpetrated
by both sides happened during the night while some occurred even in broad
daylight.”
This was the situation my brothers Chito and Joey were into. My brothers were working as radio broadcasters of Radio Bombo. Chito was in Radyo Patrol with a codename of Apollo Uno roaming around the city reporting news on the spot. Joey, on the other hand, worked as an anchorman and news commentator.
Because of the rampant lawlessness, Lt. Col Franco Calida, the chief of the military’s Metropolitan District Command (Metrodiscom), my brothers, together with 2 other radiomen Jun Pala of station DXOW and Leo Palo of DXRA with the political backing of then Vice Mayor Rodrigo Duterte organized the Alsa Masa (literally, “People’s Uprising”) against the communists. While Calida was directing the military operations, the four radiomen were the mouthpiece of incessant psychological propaganda on the airwaves exposing the communists’ atrocities. The Alsa Masa members became the eyes and ears of the military. Their involvement was not without peril.
On the early evening of January 17, 1987, Chito, his day’s assignment done, was having dinner at the food canteen beside the radio station when he saw three strange-looking men approaching. Chito’s gut instinct immediately alerted him: communist hitmen! The men entered the canteen and asked the uniformed security guard of where Chito Herbolingo was. Without waiting for the guard to point at him, he told the men to go up the second floor because Chito was in the announcer’s booth thus giving him time to escape. The men left hurriedly, but he regretted immediately what he told the men because, he realized, it was his brother Joey who was in the announcer’s booth that time. Frantically, he looked for a phone so that he could call them and warn them, but before he could speak to the technician, he heard gunfires followed by a loud explosion.
From the announcer’s booth, Joey saw the three men coming with guns drawn. As they fired at him, he dove under the table. As the men peppered the announcer’s booth with bullets, the broadcast was on-air so that the gunfires were heard over the radio After a round of gunfires, one of the men tossed a fragmentation grenade into the booth through the broken glass openings created by the gunfires and the men hurriedly left. Luckily, the grenade was snagged between the double glass walls and exploded from there. The explosion was so powerful that the ceiling above the booth caved in and the manual Olympia typewriter was thrown off the table. The explosion was heard on the radio before the station ceased broadcasting.
Finally Chito got hold of the lady technician who told him over the phone: “Chito, binaril nila si Joey, at tinapunan pa nila ng granada ang booth. Lahat kami tinamaan. Si Joey, patay na!”. (“Chito, they shot Joey and tossed a grenade into the booth. We are all wounded here. Joey is already dead!”) But Joey answered from his extension line: “Dong, (Chito’s monicker), buhay pa ako…may mga tama nga lang.” (“Dong, I’m hit but I’m still alive.”)
Moments later, the police arrived. The police and Chito brought Joey and two other wounded station personnel to the hospital. The doctors extracted 15 shrapnel pieces from Joey’s body.
