Ronald Jan F. Quimpo

Bantayog ng mga Bayani page

Ronald Jan was a mild-mannered boy with an occasional rebellious streak. At the prestigious Philippine Science High School, where he had his high school, he joined fellow scholars in protest activities against poor facilities and bad maintenance.

Jan and his fellow high school protesters then got friendly with college activists from the nearby University of the Philippines and became activists themselves. A good number of PSHS students, including Jan, joined the series of protest actions in the 1970s against abuses of the Marcos government. Jan became a member of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM).

Jan once aspired to become a scientist or an engineer. Now he wanted to become a “kadre,” in his mind, someone totally dedicated to serving the masses in a revolutionary way. He started spending time in a nearby community of squatters eking out a living mostly by quarrying adobe blocks. The community was in the middle of the city but it had a rural feel, being swampy and overrun with grass, with sparse dwellings, and residents growing vegetables in small plots and fishing in the swamps. Jan and his friends called the place a “little Isabela.”

“Isabela” referred not only to the northern province with the same name and the remoteness it conjured for the restless city-bred youth, but also to the act of joining the guerrillas then operating in that province. It was seen as the ultimate destination for the dissatisfied, alienated young activists.

In this small rural-like community, Ronald Jan was introduced to the city’s seamier side. One of his friends was a tattooed gang member who had spent time in the national penitentiary. He discovered that residents routinely bribed the police for quarry permits.

In 1971, a sudden increase in gas prices triggered widespread demonstrations by students and protest workers. In the Diliman campus of UP, a student was shot to death at a student barricade. Irate students responded by blockading the university gates from raiding police and soldiers. The incident triggered what would later in history be called the Diliman Commune. Ronald Jan, still a high school senior at the PSHS, was a participant of that historic event.

The situation wasn’t any calmer within PSHS. Students held daily protest actions and issued calls for walkout from classes. The PSHS faculty could not find enough students to fill their classrooms. Eventually, school officials decided to simply allow the two most senior batches to graduate. Jan got the benefit of this “mass graduation.”

Ronald passed the entrance exams for UP Diliman, but his heart was no longer into getting a degree. He went to school not to attend classes but to meet with fellow activists and to recruit others. Soon he dropped out completely and worked fulltime as an activist. Packing his bags, he left his parents’ apartment and went on to live at the KM headquarters.

On the 4^th of April 1973, Ronald was at the house of schoolmate Marie Hilao, when a group of anti-narcotics troopers came, demanding to see Marie’s brother, also an activist. Failing to find their target, they took Ronald Jan and two other PSHS students they found inside the house. Two of Marie’s sisters were also taken in. All were subjected to physical and psychological torture. One of Marie’s sisters was Liliosa who, by the 7^th of April, was dead, according to anti-narcotics officials, due to heart attack.

After Liliosa’s death, the torture sessions ceased. Jan was moved to a detention cell, and three months later, released.

After his release, Ronald Jan spent most of his time at home, cleaning house or quietly doing chores. Then he resumed his studies at the UP Department of Geology. But he declined invitations to resume his former involvement. He joined a fraternity and occasionally hung out with old friends from high school. He also continued to support his siblings who were also activists.

One day in October 1977, constabulary soldiers raided the Quimpo house, looking for Ronald Jan’s younger brother Ishmael Jr., who was out at the time. The soldiers left without arresting anyone. Two weeks later, Ronald Jan left home one morning, saying he was coming home for dinner. He never returned.

All attempts by the family to find him failed. They received reports that Ronald Jan was being seen in several public places, curiously turning away if a friend tried to approach him. The conclusion they have made was that he had been arrested and was likely being used to trace other activists. But these reports stopped coming in not long after, and Jan was never again seen.

He was 23.

- write-up courtesy of Bantayog ng mga Bayani Foundation

A tribute to Ronald Jan Quimpo 1954-1977

a hero under Martial Law

Speech at Bantayog ng mga Bayani

November 30, 2009

by David Ryan Quimpo*

(re-posted with permission from the Subversive Lives Facebook Page)

Today you will see two names of Quimpos in the wall of remembrance -- those of my two brothers. Ronald Jan who was a year older than me. Ishmael ( we call him Jun ) was a year younger.

I saw the remains of Jun when he was killed in 1981 and I came to know the circumstances of his murder. However, with my elder brother Ronald Jan, I will likely never see his remains nor perhaps obtain the information surrounding his death and disappearance. But deep inside, I feel that he was likely tortured to death and that he is no longer in this world. Today, I am not even sure if the memorial park where our family has a plot and where Jun is buried will allow me to place a "lapida" with the name of Ronald Jan on it, without his remains, without an exact date of death. My brother, Ronald is a "desaparecido".

His disappearance came four years after his release as a political detainee in 1973. He was no longer politically active then. He was a simple geology student in UP. The only motive I can think of for his disappearance is that his former military captors wanted to use him further before dispossing of him. Or perhaps they wanted to silence him forever. He was after all, a witness in the death of young Liliosa Hilao. Ronald was under torture when Liliosa was detained with him and a few others.

For me, Ronald's disappearance in a way illustrates how violence perpetrates itself. Those with blood in their hands, the goons of tyranny, will continue to kill. They will seek to cover their criminal deeds with even more blood.

Where impunity and terror reigns, perhaps our most important weapon against violence is truth. Truth will eventually stop violence and can come in various forms. It flows from persistent and extensive documentation of cases done by human rights organization. It comes in the form of memoirs written by those who were witnesses and survivors of the dark days of martial law. It comes through memorials like this Wall of Remembrance. Perhaps later, conditions may ripen for a Truth Commission similar to the one formed after the overthrow of apartheid in South Africa.

It is truth that will give justice to those we honor today. It is truth that will keep the goals and visions of our hereos shining and serve as an inspiration to generations to come.

In behalf of my brothers and sisters, I thank Bantayog Foundation for initiating and playing a crucial part in the continuing quest for truth.

*David Ryan Quimpo is a former activist and former head of NDF Europe

Other links

Facebook Page of "Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years" by Susan F. Quimpo and Nathan Gilbert F. Quimpo. Please visit and "like" this page.

No lives wasted by Susan F. Quimpo in Rappler.com

UP Pays Tribute to 72 Martyrs and Heroes, by GMA News

Cory Aquino, nun, 4 activists join Bantayog heroes by Ma. Ceres P. Doyo, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Other associated martyrs:

Ishmael "Jun" F. Quimpo, Jr. (younger brother)