 The tenth of December is marked as International Human Rights Day.

The first
International Human Rights Day fell on December 10, 1948, when the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights, which declares all people to be free and to have
equal rights and dignity and enumerates all human rights, was adopted by the
United Nations General Assembly.
 On International Human Rights Day, it is fitting to remember the late Filipino
writer and revolutionary Emmanuel Agapito "Eman" Lacaba. He was born on the
very day the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the UN
General Assembly. He lost his life at the height of martial law--a victim of a
human rights violation.
 If there is something Eman Lacaba is most noted for, it is for having been a
writer-activist. He was a poet, essayist, playwright, fictionist, and scriptwriter who
joined the protest movement in his student days and later lost his life as an
armed revolutionary.
 After college, he taught Rizal's Life and Works at UP and got involved in the labor
movement. He also became a member of the militant writers' group Panulat para
sa Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan. Just two months before the declaration of martial
law, he was among a number of picketers at a small factory in Pasig who faced
threats and truncheons from the police while the strike was being dispersed. He
was arrested and briefly incarcerated.

 After that, he became active on the stage, writing and acting in plays. He also
assisted in film productions, and among his compiled writings are a number of
unfinished film storylines. He wrote the lyrics for the theme song of the Lino
Brocka-directed movie Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang, which takes potshots at the
hypocrisy of society.

 In 1975 he set out for Mindanao to cast his lot with the armed revolutionary
movement, to become a "people's warrior", as he later called himself in a poem.

 Such was his passion for writing that he wrote even while leading the life of a
revolutionary guerilla. It was in the hills, in fact, that he wrote one of the poems
he is best remembered for, "Open Letters to Filipino Artists", where he wrote of
the armed revolutionary movement thus: "We are tribeless and all tribes are
ours./We are homeless and all homes are ours./We are nameless and all names
are ours./To the fascists we are the faceless enemy/Who come like thieves in the
night, angels of death:/The ever moving, shining, secret eye of the storm."
 To Lacaba, this was a travesty. “The responsibility of any writer in the world is to
write truthfully and comprehensibly about the world he lives in,” he wrote. “The
writer’s responsibility in contemporary Philippine society is to present truth, which
is not his responsibility alone, but every writer’s, every man’s in his own sphere of
living, in any age, any place.”
 Lacaba transcended his bourgeois origins and took up the highest form of
struggle in 1974, saying goodbye to his brother Pete before going to Cagayan de
Oro. Pete was in jail at the time for writing "Prometheus Unbound," which hid the
phrase MARCOS HITLER DIKTADOR TUTA in the first letter of each line.
Death of a People's Warrior
 Lacaba never stopped being an artist as a member of the People’s Army.
Somewhere along the way, he picked up Bisaya and began translating
revolutionary songs to it. He wrote whenever he can. When he ran out of paper
to write on, Lacaba settled for cigarette tinfoil. He wrote about anything—his
experience in the countryside, death and struggle, complaints about his bowel
movements and his astigmatism.


 At dawn sometime in March 1976, death came for Eman Lacaba. At this time he
was set to go back shortly to the city for a new assignment that would have used
his writing skills, and had even agreed to write a script for Lino Brocka once he
got back there.

 It was not yet six in the morning. Eman and three other companions were having
breakfast in a peasant's hut. Outside the house were their wet clothes and shoes,
left there to dry.
 Elements of an armed team made up of Philippine Constabulary (PC) men and
members of the Civilian Home Defense Front (CHDF) were with a certain Martin,
a member of Eman's unit who had earlier been captured by the military. They
happened to pass by the house where Eman and his companions were having
breakfast. Martin recognized the clothes and shoes and pointed out the house to
the PC-CHDF team, who immediately opened fire without calling on the
occupants to surrender. After a brief gunfight, two of the hut's occupants were
killed including the leader of Eman's group, while Eman and Estrieta, a pregnant
teenager, were wounded.

 The PC-CHDF team headed for Tagum with Eman and Estrieta, with villagers
carrying the corpses. However, a few kilometers from the village, the sergeant of
the PC-CHDF team decided not to bring back anyone alive. Estrieta was the first
to go. The sergeant then handed a .45 to Martin and ordered him to shoot Eman.
He did not want to, but in the end Eman himself said to him, "Go ahead, finish me
off." A bullet was fired through his mouth, crashing through the back of his skull.
As he fell, another bullet was fired at his chest. He was 27
