Revolutionary on night shift, by remote control

He’s the revolutionary on the night shift, working past midnight to check on the news from home and stay in touch with comrades from halfway around the world. On other days he’s playmate to a 3-year-old, taking his turn at the slide in the playground.

Such is life in exile for 76-year-old Luis Jalandoni, leader of the National Democratic Front (NDF), the political arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), who lives in the Netherlands while pursuing an elusive peace pact with the government.

As he steers one of the world’s last—if not the last—remaining communist rebellions from thousands of miles away, Jalandoni’s days in Utrecht are still very much attuned to Manila time some six hours ahead, his work starting when the Dutch are already in bed.

Keeping Manila time

“Actually at night, we start getting the news from the Philippines. So I check PDI (Inquirer online) around 11 or 12 p.m. I go to the computer to look at communications, statements coming from the other side (the Philippine government), news and all that,” said Jalandoni.

And if there’s news related to the peace talks, the media will start calling and interviews would take place at midnight or 1 a.m. Most of the time, it’s the media that ask for the interviews but sometimes the NDF would initiate the exchange, he said.

Sleep usually comes only after 2 a.m., when all the interviews are done.

Jalandoni, who chairs the NDF peace negotiating panel in the talks with the government, spoke with Inquirer editors and reporters the past week a few hours after his meeting with chief government negotiator Alexander Padilla, in which the two sides agreed to resume the long stalled talks in Oslo, Norway, in late October or early November.

Jalandoni is in the Philippines for consultations with other NDF leaders and legal counsel Romeo Capulong and also to visit 13 jailed NDF “consultants” whose release the rebel group has been pressing as a requirement for the peace talks to resume.

Always rooted

And while he will be returning with his wife, Consuelo, to Utrecht—their home for 35 years now—on Sept. 14, Jalandoni is never really detached from affairs in his homeland, one foot always rooted in the Philippines.

He still organizes small solidarity actions in Utrecht to coincide with major protest actions in the Philippines, among them the demonstrations for the release of political prisoners and against extrajudicial killings.

Jalandoni also welcomes into his modest home visiting Philippine officials and representatives of international organizations wishing to learn about “the struggle,” or the four-decades-long insurgency that the communists have been waging against the government.

Wife Consuelo, also a retiree at “seventy-something” (she didn’t want to reveal her exact age), meanwhile attends to affairs at the NDF office in a small rented building in Utrecht.

“In the morning, there might be visitors coming from different countries or organizations, most of them sympathetic, others just want to know,” said Jalandoni, who appears to be always flushed, as if he’s just getting reacquainted with Philippine weather.

“Once, five mayors came to discuss, to talk. Sometimes a governor would come, wanting to talk. Sometimes solidarity organizations from different countries visit. Some ask for messages for their conferences,” he said.

Dutch gov’t pensioners

As a senior citizen couple, the Jalandonis together receive a government pension of 1,300 euros (around P75,000), just a little above the Dutch minimum wage of 1,100 euros.  This affords the couple a simple lifestyle and a little recreation, such as the occasional social gathering.

“Our first and foremost form of recreation is to visit our grandchildren at least once a week. It depends when their parents want to go out,” said Jalandoni, his face lighting up.

Jalandoni is “Papa Lui” to 3-year-old Miyo and 1-year-old Gabriel, his Netherlands-born grandchildren by his only son, Jose Edmundo, and the latter’s wife, Ruth.  Now 35, Jose Edmundo was only 10 months old when the Jalandonis left the Philippines.

“Sometimes we go to the park together. The 3-year-old considers me his playmate!  When he wants to go to the slide, he takes me with him, we’re partners. We go to the slide seven times,” Jalandoni said with a chuckle.

Little victories

Asked if he ever gets weary, having pushed for peace talks for the past 26 years, Jalandoni said the NDF draws its determination from its tireless members in the field and from little victories the movement has scored in the years of trying to forge a peace deal with the government.

“Our point is that the farmers never tire of the struggle. The peace talks is one aspect of the struggle,” Jalandoni said.

Accomplishments

“There are other forms that have already borne fruit, like land reform in areas where the NPA (the CPP’s armed wing) is operating, like lowering rent, raising farmers’ wages, elimination of usury, setting up cooperatives, educational programs, so there are accomplishments,” he said.

Jalandoni smiled when asked if he and his family would ever return to the Philippines for good, as if to say that peace will have to come first before they come home.

“Perhaps the Council of National Unity (the joint government-NDF transition council on the peace agreement) could take us as consultants. In the meantime, we are able to come home from time to time. So there are these possibilities…”

“We’ll see. We can keep trying, keeping the lines open and looking for solutions to the problems,” Jalandoni said.