A family’s—and nation’s—story.

By Rina Jimenez-David
Philippine Daily Inquirer
April 23, 2012

I think it’s valid to say that not one among us in the graduating class of Maryknoll College High School 1972 would have thought that our classmate, Cristina Pargas, would end up eventually joining the New People’s Army, losing her husband who was an NPA commander, and then taking up the vocation of teaching and advocating for teachers’ rights.

I remember her as a slight bespectacled girl with unexpected reserves of humor that surfaced at the oddest times. Because she was usually quiet, she belonged to the category of “good” girls, as opposed to “bad” or “semi-bad” girls who were often scolded for wearing skirts that were too short (made even shorter after classes by the simple expedient of folding them at the waist), for smoking in the stairwells, and sassing our teachers.

Only when I was asked to edit the nominations for Tina and another classmate, Nanan Jacinto, for the Amazing Alumna Achievers Award did I get to know what happened to Tina in the years after we left our idyllic campus along Katipunan Avenue. And even then, it turns out, it wasn’t even the full story, for Tina kept a lot of crucial details to herself.

Now those details are out in public, forming part of the book “Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years.” For one thing, I finally found out the identity of her slain first husband. He was Ishmael “Jun” Quimpo Jr., whom she met while they were student activists at UP.

Jun’s (and Tina’s) story is part of the “family memoir” of the Quimpos, who paid an extraordinary price in the struggle for freedom during the Marcos and immediate post-Marcos years. Even at a time that called for enormous sacrifices from all Filipino families, the Quimpos it seems were singled out for special punishment—or honor, if you choose to view their fate that way.

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