A ‘Volt’ of Courage

Whenever I see Defense Secretary Voltaire “Volts” Gazmin, I see the face of loyalty and a strong “volt” of courage.

In the six and a half years that I covered President Corazon Aquino, I hardly, if ever, saw Gazmin smile, sit or stand at ease. I never even saw him eat at any of Cory’s official functions. He was a man of few words. He was always standing, poker-faced and eagle-eyed, in one corner of the room, eyes circling the venue.

He was the President’s shield in the seven coup attempts against her. Once, then Press Secretary Teddy Benigno told me that during the bloody December 1989 coup attempt 25 years ago this week, Gazmin was ready to die in combat defending his President.

“Magpapakamatay na noon si Volts,” he recalled. The rebel soldiers had gotten to the street where Cory lived.

Ironically, Gazmin was Ninoy Aquino’s jailer, the OIC of the Army camp in Laur, Nueva Ecija where Ninoy, along with Sen. Pepe Diokno, was kept in solitary confinement for 30 days, stripped of virtually everything — including his glasses.

Their respective cells now contain life-size wax figures of Ninoy and Diokno, along with their bare furnishings, depicting how they endured their ordeal in Laur.?Other rooms were also preserved, including that of the OIC of the detention facility — then Lt. Voltaire Gazmin.

Ironically, again, Ninoy was Gazmin’s ninong. He stood as wedding sponsor during the Army officer’s wedding to Rhodora Hernandez.

?“Ninoy didn’t recognize his godson, who was in civvies, until the latter greeted him as ‘Ninong.’ Lt. Gazmin apologized to his godfather, saying he was just following orders. Ninoy told him that he understood,” a marker outside the room reads.? ?

Cory once told me she did not even know where Ninoy was during those emotionally and physically draining days — some said he was on an island somewhere. Some unscrupulous soldiers would even tell her they saw him in this or that place. Out of gratitude for the information, Cory would even give a generous tip to the soldiers for the false leads.

***

One day, a soldier gave Ninoy’s sister Tessie Oreta another tip, which would prove genuine: Ninoy was with Volts Gazmin.

“So Ninoy is in Laur!” Cory concluded, because she somehow knew that Gazmin was in charge of Laur. Cory and her children motored to Nueva Ecija to see Ninoy for what Cory described to me as the “most traumatic experience of my life.”

Behind barbed wires, she saw her emaciated husband, who was sobbing when he finally saw his family. Cory said she was amazingly composed — her sister Terry had given her Valium before her trip to Laur.

While Ninoy was in Laur, Gazmin told him that he couldn’t set him free, but he would do his best to make his stay in the military prison as humane as possible. Ninoy took up Gazmin’s offer and asked him for a can of powdered Nido, because he did not want to eat the food being served by the soldiers, for fear that it was poisoned. And so Ninoy survived, thanks to Gazmin and to Nido.

After EDSA, Cory had no security forces except for those provided by relatives. Then one day, someone handed an envelope to Cory with the card of Gazmin inside — just in case she needed his help. So she called him and entrusted her life to him just like Ninoy did a decade before.

She appointed him head of her Presidential Security Group. Shortly before she stepped down from office, President Cory sent this letter to Volts:

 Dear Volts,

I thank your father for choosing Ninoy to be your wedding sponsor. Otherwise, I would not have had the good fortune to know you and to appoint you as my PSG Commander. The past six years have been extremely difficult, but I always knew you would be there for me and my children.

I shall always remember you in my prayers as I hope to be included in yours.

All the best to you, Rhodie, EZ and Dax!

Many, many thanks!

Corazon C. Aquino

June 25, 1992

When Cory’s son Noynoy became President in 2010, he appointed Gazmin as his Defense Secretary.

***

Last month, a long overdue book about the sphinx-like Gazmin was launched.

Voltaire Tuvera Gazmin: Under the Shadow of the Flag (written by Edith Magtibay Garde) follows the life of a man who would only reluctantly talk about his life. But this book runs counter to that characteristic humility. It recounts that life only because a group of people insisted on it being told, because there was a story.

In keeping with the manner and style of its subject, Under the Shadow of the Flag tells how Volts has been the self-effacing but well-respected soldier and field officer, the unwavering and inimitable military official, and the diplomat and public servant whose loyalty lies ultimately with the Filipino people. And most of the stories attesting to his qualities are told by the people who personally saw the man in action.

“Kailangan pa ba iyan? Is that necessary? Hindi na.” That was Gazmin’s initial reaction when his brother-in-law Gaudencio “Goody” Hernandez Jr. first broached to him, over lunch, the idea of a book about his life.

The private other half of his life is told as well among these pages: the loving husband and father who, despite the demands of his job, sought to stay as close as possible to his family; the firm believer in the tenets of the brotherhood of Masonry; and the grandfather of the twice-interrupted retirement who took his “apostolic work” (doting on his apos) very seriously.

President Noynoy Aquino describes Gazmin succinctly: “The bane of coup plotters, the foiler of superior forces intent on toppling democracy and plunging it back to the Filipino Dark Ages. Volts was and is a man of few words. He walks the talk and does not even talk a lot. He leads. What you see is what you get, there is no hidden agenda: he is neither yes-man nor blind follower, his allegiance is with the Filipino people.”

Isang Harding Papel

Launched recently at the Museo Pambata, to coincide with the celebration of Araw ng Pagbasa and the 82nd birth anniversary of the late Sen. Ninoy Aquino, is Isang Harding Papel.

Isang Harding Papel, written by Augie Rivera and illustrated by Rommel Joson, is a story set during the martial law years in the Philippines. The book centers around the experience of seven-year-old Jenny visiting her mother, a political detainee imprisoned for years after joining a protest rally.

Both Rivera and Joson have received several awards for their work in children’s literature. Rivera has written 18 stories for children and has won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature more than once, while Joson has garnered awards and citations for painting, illustration, comics and design from various organizations including the Philippine Board on Books for Young People.

The EDSA People Power Commission (EPPC) was created to institutionalize the legacy of the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution. EPPC, together with Adarna House Publishing, has embarked on a project to educate children about People Power and come up with three children’s books about EDSA.  This book is the second of the series.

(You may e-mail me at [email protected].)