Because it's his birthday today... my friend from my distant teenagehood -- Fidel. Nemenzo... not Castro, of Cuba. Fidel's 40 years old today (he was one year younger than me) and if he's somehow reading this: Happy Birthday, old friend!

Fidel and I lost touch several years ago, as our lives and careers became more focused; me in Berkeley, he in Manila. He was busy obtaining his Ph.D. in mathematics from a university in Japan, and being hired as a very young professor at the University of the Philippines, that country's most prestigious institution of higher learning. And I, well... my attention became flamelike and intense, as I pursued my avocation at this small program at the Berkeley campus. In any case, it had been more than a decade since I had lost touch with many of my college-age friends from the late 70s in the Philippines, as my family had immigrated to America in 1980.

But I do wonder why Fidel and I eventually stopped connecting, as the 90s wore on. Sure, there was the intensity of our different pursuits in different loci of the planet, and he was starting a family as well (and in a sense, so was I). But for being best friends in our late high school and early college years together at the University of the Philippines before I immigrated, I find it curious that we somehow lost touch. I do know, though, that if we see each other again, even in our present incarnations, the memories of what Fidel and I had together in friendship and brotherhood will be quickly rekindled and it will seem as if no time has really passed.

Do you think that, 25 years from now, you'll still be in touch with your best friends in high school or college today and more importantly, still feel that deep connection with them?

It is entirely impossible to encapsulate a life, let alone a relationship between two individuals, in the stark sketch of a few lines or paragraphs in a weblog. So I should just say then, with hope, that I'll be writing more about my friend Fidel, in future weblogs to come. I'd like to write about him and me because what we went through in the late 70s and early 80s captures my sad and happy country in a most amazing time of its messy, vibrant, topsy-turvy, harrowing, history. But for today's weblog, just this vignette:

It is 1984. I am in Berkeley, involved in a Filipino-American student organization at Cal, organizing among Filipinos and Americans in the Bay Area against the decrepit dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines.

In Manila, at the same time, yet another rally is taking place, organized by students of the University of the Philippines, renowned for their radical leftist views and unapologetic activism against the Marcos tyranny, even if it means detention as political prisoners, or even death in the struggle against the regime. Fidel is in the forefront of this student organizing, as a leader and theoretician in the Young Socialists, a small Marxist-Leninist student organization that has splintered from the larger Nationalist Youth, which is essentially a Maoist organization.

Nighttime... during one of the numerous bonfire and march rallies that students have been doing, facing off against the military might of the regime. For them, police truncheons and teargas, dummy bullets and firehose jets, are constant companions in the street struggles. All they have are their voices, their placards and banners, handkerchiefs to protect against the gas, and their staunch convictions. The place is Mendiola, and students are arrayed against the police and barricades on the road leading to Malacañang Palace, Marcos' residence.

But tonight, it is not police they face but regular military; Philippine Constabulary and Army units. They are facing not dummy bullets but real ones in M-16 Armalites (courtesy of the good old U.S. of A.). There are speeches by the student leaders in front of their massed student demonstrators. One of the leaders giving a speech is Fidel. Warned to disperse, they do not, and continue their demonstration. The military units advance, under cover of heavy clouds of teargas, the heavily armed soldiers wearing gas masks.

Stunned, the student demonstrators reel back down Mendiola Avenue, their leaders in the rear, between them and the military. Then, a fusillade of shots rings out. Presumably, stones, sticks, cans or bottles are being hurled against the advancing soldiers, who are behind phalanxes of shields. Even so, this does not justify firing openly at civilians. Up to this point in the dictatorship, such a nakedly brutal display of force has not been done. There has been brutality and force, but always under the guise of secrecy. Not this way... not out in the streets, not firing on unarmed students.

Retreating in chaos, many of the students are gunned down. Fidel is hit. The two-inch long M-16 round pierces his back, exits his chest. It is found later to have passed within a centimeter of his heart; it would have meant instant death otherwise. But he survives the shock of the wound, bleeding on the street, surrounded by friends and comrades until an ambulance arrives... much later... and he is barely saved and resuscitated in the emergency room.

Less than a year after, I am with Fidel, as he recuperates from his wound, as I had resolved to witness and join in the struggle from my homeland itself, and not thousands of miles away in America. I saw and experienced things during that visit back to the Philippines that will remain with me until the day I die, and which I'll write about some other time.

In 1986, a year after I went home to the Philippines for that 3-month visit, the first People's Power Revolution took place, and Cory Aquino and the Filipino masses booted out the tyrant Marcos, and that tragic, harmful era in Philippine history was over.

...but that era is still echoing today. Just last month, the second instance of People's Power in the Philippines took place, a revolution-sans-bloodshed that toppled the corrupt presidency of Joseph Estrada, a former movie star in action films, whose foray into politics proved disastrous for the country. Coincidentally, this new street revolution also ushered in a woman, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo to the presidency. Filipinos everywhere can only hope that "GMA," as she is known there, has learned from the lessons of Cory Aquino's tenure, and proves to be a good and intelligent leader.

As for Fidel, I don't know what he thinks of all the current political upheavals in his country. Perhaps if he reads this, he'll write back and tell me...

Tomorrow: We were runners, and we ran as if our lives depended on running; which, in a way, it did.

Talkback...

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