Off the press soon: Subversive Lives

This title will be out soon and be available at National Bookstore branches. Following is the synopsis from an open Facebook page.
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Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years


Like other accounts of the Martial Law era, Subversive Lives provides documentation, research, and disclosures about the underground movement. And like the others, it was primarily written as a tribute to that era’s martyrs and heroes. But what sets Subversive Lives apart from previously published memoirs is that it is written by a family.

Seven out of ten siblings were separately drawn into the "national-democratic" revolution. Of middle class origins, the Quimpo siblings responded to the militant calls for justice and change. As they defied the status quo and the structures that propped up the dictatorship, they too unknowingly were destroying their own familial and friendship ties in the name of revolution.

A mother sneaks out food rations for a son disowned by his father; a husband, under severe torture, is forced to reveal the whereabouts of his comrades and his wife; at his deathbed, a father struggles to start a conversation with his estranged son; a letter from a NPA fighter is smuggled out of the guerrilla zone, in it he begs for news on his wife’s arrest and torture.

That Subversive Lives is a non-fiction narrative written by nine authors is a feat in itself. The book is not an anthology, rather, the individual stories, each rich and distinctive in their tone, were weaved together in a coherent account that spans the 1960s to the early 1990s. From the family’s modest beginnings in provincial towns and cities, to the turbulent streets of Manila’s protest rallies, to Marcos’ torture chambers and prisons, to the hills and guerilla zones of Bicol and Nueva Ecija, and finally, to the Filipino community of political exiles in Western Europe – this book is a page-turner.

Consistently authentic, the authors readily admit foibles and poke fun at themselves even as they narrate a plot to smuggle arms from abroad or a military operation known as “agaw armas.” The book maintains that the “unfinished” revolution arguably ended in 1993 when the ranks of the CCP were split by ideological differences. The final chapter Aftermath, tells the reader each sibling’s view, in hindsight, of his or her participation in the revolution.