Remembering Evelio Javier

Some of our heroes may have been more brilliant or achieved more greatly, but I find it hard to think of any who lived more purely and more single mindedly than Evelio... his commitment to democracy, to social justice and to a life among the poor in our land.

Februay 11, 2009 in Panay Island, Philippines is Evelio B. Javier Day.

It is the 22nd Anniversary of the assassination of Evelio Javier. It was a stunning and decisive event towards our eventual liberation from Martial Law later that February 1986. Many in our Ateneo community remember meeting Evelio’s body at the airport two days later, and the Mass and the long march from Baclaran to the Ateneo de Manila on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1986. We had a Mass at sunset in the field beside the Blue Eagle Gym and ended the Mass with the electrifying experience of hearing Fr. Jose A. Cruz, S.J. read for the first time in public the letter of the CBCP on the elections.

Evelio B. Javier was born to Everardo Autajay Javier of Hamtic and Feliza Bellaflor of Culasi on October 14, 1942 in Barangay Lanag (now Evelio Javier), Hamtic, Antique. Evelio later on married Precious Bello Lotilla of Sibalom, with whom he had two sons, Francis Gideon and David. A true achiever, he graduated with first honors from the San Jose Elementary School and the Ateneo de Manila High School. He finished his Bachelor of Arts Major in History and Government at the Ateneo College of Arts and Sciences in 1963 where he likewise finished his Bachelor of Laws also in 1968, when he also took and passed the Bar Examination.

Realizing his destiny for public service, he ran for Governor of Antique and won by a landslide vote in 1971. At the age of 28, he was the country's youngest governor. It was in his term that he initiated Antique's most famous festival, the Binirayan in 1974. His other brainchild, the Antique Upland Development Program, assisted by the Ford Foundation, USAID, UPLB and other development funding institutions, was the first model for sustainable development strategies for the third world countries.

He did not run for re-election in 1980, when he instead decided to pursue a scholarship grant to the J.F.K. School of Government at the Harvard University in 1981. He ran for assemblyman against an influential Marcos candidate, and lost due to fraud. Five years after his death in 1986, the Supreme Court declared him the real winner.

It is more complex to reflect on Evelio’s other love and passion, Antique and our nation. The images come back to me – the sunburnt and barren land and hills, the signs at his funeral saying “Evelio, paano na kami?”, the furrowed faces of the weeping women of Antique that summed it all up: the harsh poverty, the intensity of their sorrow at his passing. Paano na nga sila sa paglisan ni Evelio? As I read of the drought in Panay there is the last four years have not been kind to them.

But it is of his dream for the nation that I think of most today – with our country .

I search for images and I think of him on his campaign trail, little boys marching in front with their sling shots and Evelio coming behind, his battered vehicle cranking out his theme ‘The Impossible Dream’. Today is not for answering these questions, but for remembering a friend, who would have replied: “And if the answer seems yes I would still know but one way and one life: to be true to my dream and my quest.” I know this is how he would answer, because even in the darkest periods of martial law, our conversations never turned to whether we were illusioned or disillusioned – the quest was to be pursued, the fight to be fought without question or pause.

Some of our heroes may have been more brilliant or achieved more greatly, but I find it hard to think of any who lived more purely and more single mindedly than Evelio their commitment to democracy, to social justice and to a life among the poor in our land. At the end of his funeral mass in Antique, Precious spoke with a moving eloquence, which my memory after four years can only roughly paraphrase: “Evelio used to say that if you tilt at windmills, they will either crush you to the ground or cast you among the stars. His enemies thought in killing him that they had crushed him to the ground, but I looked around among you and I know that they have cast him among the stars.” Some of us feel that for the last four years we have been tilting at our windmills of democracy and social justice and right now we feel crushed to the ground. It is good to remember Evelio, to hear once more the ‘Impossible Dream’ and feel his assurance that we shall yet be cast among the stars.

(Published in the Manila Chronicle on 10 February 1990)