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Issue Number 31, October 2008
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Kapatiran Issue
No. 31, October 2008
KA BEL: THE LOVE STORY
TJ Burgonio,
Philippine Daily Inquirer, 25/5/08
It Started In A Taxi For The Beltrans
The love affair of Crispin Ka Bel Beltran and
Rosario Ka Osang Soto began in the
unlikeliest placea taxicab.
It was November 10, 1956. The then 15-year-old Osang had
run away from home in Tondo (Metro Manila) after a spat
with her grandmother over cutting classes and, in front
of Quiapo Church in Manila City, got into the cab driven
by Beltran.
Distraught, she told Beltran to just drive on. When they
reached Monumento in Caloocan, Metro Manila he stopped
the cab and demanded to know exactly where she was going.
So she told him what happened.
He lectured me. He told me I was so young and yet
had the audacity to run away from home. He said,
You were spanked by your mother, and you ran
away, Ka Osang, now 68, recalled.
Beltran, then 26, offered to drive her home. But she
protested and tried to get off.
Seeing that night had fallen, he stopped her and decided
to take her to his boarding house in San Juan.
3 Days In His Room
The story of how the long romance began is told in a
profile of Beltran posted on the website of the militant
labour alliance Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU).
Osang stayed in Beltrans room for three days,
sleeping separately from him. She was alone most of the
time because he was a cabbie by day and a student by
night, attending classes at the University of the
Philippines Asian Labor Education Center.
In time her furious father showed up at the boarding
house, beat up Beltran in front of her, and hauled him
off to the San Juan municipal jail.
Eventually, they had to get married, lest the young woman
end up disgraced.
There was no love then. I was totally against it. I
didnt like him. But he, on the other hand, was
open-minded. He said that love was something we could
both learn, Ka Osang said in an interview with KMU.
And it didnt take long for her to love
Beltran, who, she said, was a good provider
and a gentle husband.
The couple had 10 (not 11, as earlier reported) children.
Jealousy
The young wife also learned to admire her husband for
organising unions in the slums of Metro Manila and
elsewherean advocacy that often took him away from
his family.
In his early 20s, Beltran was a full-fledged labour
leader. He was president of the Yellow Taxi Drivers
Union and the Amalgamated Taxi Drivers Federation from
1955 to 1963, according to KMU.
He went on to serve as vice administrator of the
Confederation of Labor Unions of the Philippines and vice
president of the Philippine Alliance of Nationalist
Organizations from 1963 to 1972.
At first I was jealous [of the movement]. I would
expect him to come home every night. But since he
organised workers in slums, the urban poor, and conducted
seminars on workers rights, there were times he
didnt come home, Ka Osang told the Inquirer
on the phone.
Now I see how the seed he planted has
flowered, she said.
Tough test
Through the years, she gave the man who had come to be
known as Ka Bel her full support.
The tough test came in August 1982 when the minions of
the Marcos dictatorship cracked down on Beltran and other
labour leaders.
We already had 10 children when he was arrested. We
had no money, and my children lived on my small earnings
from selling rubber slippers and fish in the
market, Ka Osang told KMU.
Beltran was then KMU secretary general, and he and his
family lived in a slum community in Barangay
Commonwealth, Quezon City, Metro Manila.
In the two years that her husband was detained at Camp
Crame in Quezon City, Ka Osang made up for his absence,
delivering speeches at rallies in his behalf and,
eventually, doing volunteer work at the Task Force
Detainees of the Philippines, according to KMU.
And together with the wives, daughters and relatives of
political detainees, she sought their release. But
Ferdinand Marcos did not budge.
Daring Escape
When KMU president Felixberto Olalia died of pneumonia in
his detention cell in 1984, Ka Osang worried about her
husband who was then afflicted with a kidney ailment.
She visited him, armed with an escape plan.
Beltran was allowed a brief leave to attend a
nephews birthday celebrationnaturally, with
military escorts. According to their escape plan, he went
to the mens room supposedly to relieve himself, and
managed to flee through a hole in the wall.
For the daring escape of her husbandconsidered an
enemy of the stateKa Osang endured blows, punches
and kicks from his escorts.
Beltran went into hiding in Central Luzon, and was given
shelter by insurgents.
The couple were reunited after Marcos was ousted in 1986
and President Corazon Aquino ordered the release of all
political prisoners. Beltran continued his advocacy in
mainstream society. He joined the party-list elections as
a second nominee of Bayan Muna in 2001 and won a seat in
the House of Representatives.
He won a second term in 2004 and a third term in 2007 as
Anakpawis representative.
Members of his family thought that his election as
lawmaker would improve their lot. But they were proved
wrong.
He was the type who gave away to others anything in
excess of his pay. That was what he imparted to his
children, Ka Osang said.
Sedition, Rebellion
An even tougher test for the family came in February
2006, when Beltran was arrested on the strength of a
warrant for a 1985 sedition case.
When this did not hold, the police still detained him at
the Philippine Heart Center for one-and-a-half years for
a rebellion case (the couple marked their 50th
anniversary with a Mass at the hospital)
The Supreme Court dismissed the case against Beltran and
five other party-list lawmakers in June 2007. He was
freed the following month.
Early on May 20, Ka Osang saw her husband repairing the
roof of their home in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan.
I was going out to pay our electricity bill, and
saw him fixing our roof. I told him to come down and eat
first, because he might get dizzy and fall. He just
laughed, she said.
As it happened, Beltran fell and sustained grave head
injuries.
Gratitude
After he breathed his last at the Far Eastern University
hospital in Fairview, Quezon City, Ka Osang embraced him
and thanked him.
I wanted to show him I was thankful. He might think
that we never took to heart everything that he did for
us. Despite our poverty, all of our children went to
college, she said.
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