Whenever February comes around, I take a moment to remember the heady days of Edsa Revolution and the small role I played in Radyo Bandido, the pirate radio station anchored by the late June Keithley, who later became known as one of the heroines of Edsa.
Memories are all I have because, as with most of the heroic acts performed by countless individuals during that time, our exploits in Radyo Bandido were never adequately documented or sadly, were knowingly distorted by people with more to gain by inflating their own roles than acknowledging the bravery of the others who also played a part in some of the pivotal moments of the February revolution. The rest of us who did not seek credit for our roles in Radyo Bandido post-Edsa were appalled to see that the ones who did could simply erase the part we played in the unraveling of the Marcos dictatorship in 1986. But, we did not want to cast a shadow on the People Power revolution so we kept silent. But silence did not mean we forgot.
Radyo Bandido was a name we devised for our clandestine radio operation which ran on those few days before the Marcoses fled Malacanang Palace. Shortly before that, the government had shut down all opposition television and radio stations including the Catholic Church’s Radio Veritas whose transmitter was blown up by military forces. June Keithley had been the voice of Radio Veritas.
We were returning home from a dinner with friends that balmy February evening when June noticed the heightened security around Malacanang Palace. We did not know then that a plot to overthrow Marcos had been uncovered, which set into motion the defection of Marcos officials Juan Ponce Enrile and General Fidel Ramos who fled to Camp Aguinaldo to evade arrest.
June called me later that night to ask me to gather secretly as many of our friends as I could, to help her open a radio station in a shuttered building in Sta. Mesa. I began calling friends, starting with my colleagues from Batibot—the educational children’s TV program that emerged from Kalye Sesame, the first Asian co-production of the American children’s program, which ironically, was one of Mrs. Imelda Marcos’ pet projects; it was terminated after only one year, leaving the local team to produce Batibot as a completely Filipino, commercially-funded program.
When the nuns arrived, they came armed only with their rosaries
Sixteen brave souls responded to our calls to join June, including Jaime Fabregas and directors Peque Gallaga and Kokoy Jimenez, activist Mario Taguiwalo and Healthy You’s MaryAnn Borromeo. June’s mentor, Fr. James Reuter, SJ, and his assistant, Sister Sarah, were also there in the beginning to help coordinate the opening up of the defunct radio station atop the Jacinto-Tanco building. They were with some military-looking-type men in civilian clothes. Later, when I realized that the military types had left us with nothing but a “live” telephone line connected to General Ramos at Camp Aguinaldo, I called my mother (Conchita Liboro Benitez) to ask her to find us some security. She then called Jaime Cardinal Sin, who contacted the nuns of the Assumption Convent.
When the nuns arrived, they came armed only with their rosaries and calmly assured me that no one would get past them as they sat on the steps leading up to the radio tower. Later, I learned that Marcos had ordered one of his crack teams led by Bobby Ortega to come down from Ilocos Norte to hunt us down. Apparently, when they saw the masses of people gathered on the streets, they asked for written orders from Gen. Prospero Olivas and having received none, did not continue with their mission to find and stop us.
