Call center agent misses dad on Christmas

SAN PEDRO, Laguna—Behind the flashy smiles and the striking pose, Jessa Villeno, 23, was anything but a typical call center agent, doing modeling on her free time or allowing herself time to party on her days off.

Her life suddenly turned around when her father, labor activist Benjamin “Ben” Villeno, 43, went missing.

“I would arrive at work late, not because I overslept, but because of the usually long trip from another camp,” Jessa said in an interview Sunday.

This became her routine—working at night and, during daytime, searching Army or police camps where she hoped to find answers.

Jessa said her father, a labor activist since 1989 who had organized Lakas Manggagawang Nagkakaisa sa Honda-Kilusang Mayo Uno, a workers’ union at Honda Cars Philippines in Laguna, went missing on August 27.

On that day, Jessa recalled she was excited to see the father she had not seen for months. “I wanted to break the news that I finally got a regular job (in a call center in Sta. Rosa City, Laguna),” she said.

But Ben never came to their relatives’ house in Dasmariñas City, Cavite, where they were supposed to meet. A month later, Ben’s colleagues in a labor union in Laguna resigned to the fact that he was missing or worse, “abducted.”

He disappeared without a trace, except for his text message to a colleague saying he “was being tailed.” To Jessa, this meant her father was in trouble.

In a phone interview, fellow union members said Ben also later became chair of Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawa sa Timog Katagalugan, a regional labor alliance, and served as coordinator of the Bayan Muna party-list group and Satur for Senator Movement for former Rep. Satur Ocampo’s senatorial bid in 2010.

“No body, not even a strand of his hair, or a piece of his clothing (has been found),” Jessa said.

Jessa grew up trying to understand her father’s “job” or why he was not always around. She remembered the first time she saw him in a protest rally, and when, in Grade 4, Ben was asked to report to her school.

“He remembered that quite well,” Jessa said. “We had a class debate, on who should be the national hero, (Jose) Rizal or (Andres) Bonifacio, and of course I defended Bonifacio like I learned from him,” she said.

Jessa was in Grade 6 when the family went home to Ben’s parents in Baybay, Leyte. It was not long when she learned that her parents had separated. She offered no reason for the split: “All I could say is it wasn’t like my father left for another woman.”

After high school, Jessa returned to Laguna with her father to study college, although he stayed most of the time with the union members. Jessa’s mother, a factory worker, now lives separately in Cabuyao City, Laguna.

They would sometimes not see Ben for months but he never lost contact with his four children. He also never missed seeing them on their birthdays, graduation, school break and Christmas.

When Supertyphoon “Yolanda” hit Leyte in November, Jessa asked her brother, 17, to come stay with her in her place in Sta. Rosa City to help unburden her grandparents as they recover from the calamity. Jessa’s two other sisters, ages 22 and 13, stayed with her grandparents in Leyte.

“It felt different being separated by distance, than being not together because someone in the family is missing and you have no idea what’s going on,” Jessa said.

It was the first time, since Jessa started competing in beauty pageants in high school that Ben was not around to see her in a contest she had joined in her company last month.

“I’m afraid this would also be the first Christmas we won’t hear from him,” she said.

Except for her brother, Jessa was on her own, searching for Ben. She said she was close to giving up, if not for the workers, who “were so willing to hold those streamers in his name” during rallies.

“It’s because of them that I know my father is a good man,” she said. “He had not done anything [against the law] and if he had, they’re not giving us a fair fight.”