Journalist turns to fiction for ‘big’ truth on Jolo burning

An American historian and editor once quipped that “every journalist has a novel in him (or her), which is an excellent place for it.” It’s a warning of sorts to journalists: just because they make a living reporting and writing doesn’t necessarily mean they have what it takes to venture into the elevated world of creative fiction. Criselda Yabes just proved some journalists do have what it takes. A veteran reporter who has worked for Manila and international publications, including the Associated Press and Newsweek, Cris has covered her share of political upheavals and war. She reported on the final years of the Marcos dictatorship and the political turmoil after the regime’s fall, including the series of military coup attempts that rocked the administration of Corazon Aquino. She’s written a couple of books on the military, including “Boys from the Barracks,” an account of the military rebellions in the late 80s and early 90s, and “Peace Warrior,” published this year. Cris has covered the decades-old conflict in Mindanao. Her reporting led to a non-fiction work, “Sarena’s Story, The Loss of a Kingdom.” It also led to an even more ambitious work, and an important contribution to Philippine literature. “Below the Crying Mountain” won the U.P. Centennial Literary Awards in 2008 and was long-listed for the MAN Asian Literary Prize last year. The novel tackles a dark chapter in our history, the burning of Jolo in 1974. I still remember that period as a time when most Filipinos (at least those of us in Manila) imagined Mindanao ablaze, a violent and dangerous place. But it was a hazy view. I developed a somewhat deeper understanding of the event as a reporter when I wrote about the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the 1980s and in the late 1990s. Other books and articles also helped explain the roots of that conflict, especially the incisive “Under the Crescent Moon,” by journalists Marites Dañguilan Vitug and Glenda Gloria. Through “Below the Crying Mountain,” Cris Yabes paints a deeper portrait of a troubled part of the archipelago that has reeled for decades from war and exploitation. The novel features two well-drawn and fascinating female lead characters. Rosy France is a mestiza from Zamboanga who falls in love with and marries a Tausug professor-turned-rebel leader, Prof. Hassan. Nahla is a feisty Tausug girl who sees her affair with a military officer, Captain Rodolfo, as a way of escaping what to her was a dreary life on Jolo island. With her black hair parted in the middle and in her mini-skirt, Nahla is known as the Ali MacGraw of Jolo. She forms a strong friendship with Rosy, known as the Milikan, or American, the newly-arrived stranger who had eloped with the island’s famous intellectual-activist. In the Milikan girl, Nahla confides her dream of being discovered and becoming a movie star. Cris Yabes captures that bond in one scene: “’Who’s going to come here looking for a movie star?’ said Nahla again. ‘Nobody likes us, we belong to a race of pirates and kidnappers, that’s what the world thinks.’ “’Maybe you’re right, no one comes to Jolo,’ said Rosy France, ‘no one except me.’ ‘And together they laughed, these two girls in miniskirts.’ But their friendship is later tested by the rebellion that was brutally put down by the Marcos regime, ripping the island apart. Many Filipinos still imagine Jolo as the Wild West in the southern corner of the archipelago, a scary place which recently became notorious internationally with the series of kidnappings of Europeans and Americans by the Abu Sayyaf. “Below the Crying Mountain” offers a fuller picture of a world that is both unknown to most of us, but also familiar. The novel portrays Jolo of the early 1970s, where a proud Moro professor sees revolution as a way to achieve justice for his long-suffering people, while a Tausug girl daydreams at a local café of a different life by playing the theme song from “Love Story” over and over again. Cris writes, “No one will tell her to stop playing that funeral song from that mushy movie that all the girls of Jolo had queued for and wept after watching.” Cris Yabes had originally thought of writing a non-fiction book about the burning of Jolo. She grew up in Zamboanga and Jolo, where her father set up the first Metrobank branch in the early 1970s. Her family moved to Zamboanga before the uprising. Years later, during a reporting trip to Jolo, she met a friend who had become the battalion commander on the island. He gave her a copy of the de-classified report on the after-battle report on the rebellion. “That brought out all of my childhood memories of Jolo,” Cris told me. “Reading it and being there at the same time. It made me think of doing a non-fiction book on the burning of Jolo.” But then, “I realized that people I came across reminded me of my life and people who were close to me -- that’s when I decided to fictionalize it,” she said. It turned out to be a wise decision. “Below the Crying Mountain” is an elegantly-written novel, with powerful, memorable characters struggling to survive a tumultuous period in our history. Novelist John Le Carre once portrayed fiction writing as aiming for “the big truth,” instead of the “small truth” that journalists typically explore. Cris just proved a journalist can aim for the big truth, although she admits making that shift can be tough and tricky. “I had no idea if I was doing it right,” she said. She had not taken classes or gone to any fiction writing workshops. “I suppose the other tough thing is that I had no one to consult or share it with, if I was doing it right. On hindsight though, that was probably a blessing -- I didn’t have to follow a certain technique or formula.” Another novelist, E. L. Doctorow, once described writing as “like driving at night in the fog. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” We should be thankful that Cris Yabes decided to begin the trip, and kept on going. (Criselda Yabes will be at the Filipino American International Book Festival, Oct. 1-2 in San Francisco. For more information, check out the FilbookFest site here.) On Twitter @KuwentoPimentel.