By Tonyo Cruz (Manila)

Saturnino C. Ocampo was already an accomplished reporter and business editor of the Philippines’ biggest and most influential newspaper when in the early 1970’s, he just dropped everything.

Twas a time of ferment in the country. One on hand, there was President Ferdinand Marcos whose mismanagement of the country was ruining the people’s lives, enriching himself and his wife Imelda (known today for her thousands of pairs of shoes) and who unleashed the most brutal tactics against Filipinos who protested. On the other hand, there were the Filipinos who wanted true democracy and freedom for everyone.

By the time Marcos proclaimed martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, Ka Satur was already nowhere to be found. Not in the Manila Times newsroom, not in the bar of the National Press Club. He wasn’t even in the streets where he had joined anti-Marcos, pro-democracy protest actions. With wife Bobbie Malay, Ka Satur went to the hills to offer his journalism skills and his life to Filipinos who had decided to fight back.

Ka Satur would join several others in 1973 to form the National Democratic Front (NDF) in 1973. The NDF assembled all underground organizations fighting Marcos and kept the fire burning in the countryside as Marcos tightened his hold of the cities with the most brutal means at his disposal. He helped edit underground newspapers and publications.

Ka Satur was arrested in 1976, with Marcos parading him as a prize catch. He was severely and repeatedly tortured by soldiers in vain attempts to squeeze information on the NDF. But he didn’t squeal. Amnesty International and journalists’ groups in the Philippines and abroad protested his torture and demanded his release. The international attention on Ka Satur helped to shed light on the thousands of people Marcos ordered detained and tortured.

The military courts that tried him never found Ka Satur guilty of the crimes imputed against him by the dictatorship. By May 1984, while on a pass to cast a vote in the National Press Club elections, Ka Satur slipped away and rejoined the underground movement. He would resurface only in 1986 when Marcos had been ousted through People Power 2 and as chief negotiator of the NDF in peace talks with the government.

Ka Satur would be rearrested later on trumped up charges which would later be dismissed. By the mid-1990s, he left the underground to be a legal activist and to renew ties with journalists as a columnist and political analyst. It was also a good time to catch up on his two kids who were born while Marcos held him in prison.

By 2001, Ka Satur had become the most prominent people’s leader, the gentle face of the Left in the Philippines and president of Bayan Muna, the partylist organization he would soon lead to a remarkable electoral victory in May that year. Bayan Muna ended up as the topnotcher among dozens of partylist organizations and won three seats, with the first going to Ka Satur.

Congressman Satur Ocampo is the same as the Ka Satur we’ve long known. He remains an activist who would relish spending time with the common folk. He remains a journalist who checks and edits the statements written for him, and who would write his major speeches before Congress. He is a close to his staff but does not allow them to put up a cordon sanitaire to separate him from his constituents.

Ka Satur is an unconventional leftist. His intelligence, humility and diplomacy shine though when interviewed by colleagues in the media, when delivering privilege speeches in Congress, or when sitting in meetings of House committees. He is a well-respected voice on the issue of “peace, reconciliation and unity” inside and outside Congress.

When government in 2006 tried to arrest him and several other legislators, Ka Satur sought refuge in the House of Representatives. For weeks, he was practically “detained” inside its premises. When his grandson came to visit for abroad, he took him out for walks inside the House compound and played with him on the House lawn. He would sleep on a simple cot on the floor, together with his staff, as we waited for the Supreme Court to ultimately free him from the threat of detention.

When we were about to celebrate a staff Christmas Party at his and Ka Bobbie’s house, I was surprised to see Ka Satur open the door. He was all wet, sans his eyeglasses and the formal clothes the public are familiar to see him in. It turned out he was washing clothes! Yes, our congressman was washing his own clothes, including several heavy suits.

As his media officer that time, I was honored to see Ka Satur at work as a congressman. Yes, he was a militant, a sworn advocate of people’s rights and welfare, especially free speech and public health, but he was also diplomatic. He has many friends who value his advice and his friendship.

Ka Satur is also very open to new technologies: He’s an avid texter and knows how to use his phone to send and receive email. He was the first political leader in the Philippines to hold on online press conference and the first to use YouTube for political ends. Together with others in what was then known as the Batasan 6 (Liza Maza, Joel Virador, Teddy Casino, Crispin Beltran and himself), they set up a blog and fought the government online. That was in 2006, when he and other activists were feeling the brunt of government attempts to silence and annihilate them.

Ka Satur, now 70, is currently a deputy leader of the minority in the House of Representatives and is looking at prospects for a run to be a senator next year. But he remains the wonderful son Satur to his mother and the Kuya Satur to his siblings who took part in a public tribute made in his honor early this year.

If and when he becomes a senator, I am confident that this poor boy-turned-journalist who went on to become a revolutionary and now a people’s legislator would never lose touch with the public he has long sworn to serve with his characteristic diplomacy, militancy and intelligence.

About the Author:
Tonyo Cruz is a writer, blogger, journalist and activist in Manila, Philippines. He is founder and president of the advocacy group TXTPower and a crew member of bloggers’ group Bloggers Kapihan. He has worked as media officer for people’s organizations, Members of Congress, and a presidential candidate in the Philippines, and as a reporter for a national English-language daily in Manila and for the local bureau of a major foreign newspaper. His blog, tonyocruz.com, won in the best news and media category of the Philippine Blog Awards in 2008.