By ANDREA PASION
In 1934, in the halls of the Constitutional Convention, the youngest delegate, Wenceslao Q. Vinzons, spoke.
“Mr. President, I take the floor today in response to what I consider a duty to my conscience and country…
“The precept we wish to eliminate through the amendment presented by several members of this convention grants the Chief Executive a vast power of ordinance-making… The provision relevant to this point reads as follows: ‘In times of war or other national emergency, the national assembly may authorize the president, for a limited period and subject such restrictions as it may prescribe, to promulgate rules and regulations to carry out a declared national policy.”
September 28, 1910. Named after his patron saint, St. Wenceslaus, Wenceslao Q. Vinzons was born in Indan, Camarines Norte to Gavino Vinzons and Engracia Quinito. Bintao, as he was called by friends and family, was not the average kid who would join other boys in sports and games. In school, he was called the walking encyclopedia. His idea of fun was working on his portable typewriter, the first in the province. His library in Indan boasted of 6,000 volumes. It came as no surprise that the boy who would rather be alone with his books later topped his class.
He was different.
As the years rolled by, the name Bintao “became a byword for the poor, the oppressed and downtrodden.” In June 1930, he took up the cause of farmers whose crops were destroyed by typhoons that stormed the Bicol region. In his article, “Storm-Tossed, Tax-Ridden,” he criticized government officials who mercilessly confiscated farmers’ furniture as payment for taxes.
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And in the halls of Convention, the voice rang undaunted by fear of self-preservation: “The grant of such an extensive power to the President of the Philippines is not warranted… The system of government we are adopting must not give rise to the possibility of the control of government by a single strongman and the establishment of a virtual dictatorship.”
In 1931, Vinzons topped the Collegian editorial exam. He was also president of the UP Student Council. As head of the two most prestigious institutions of the university, he upheld the principles of UP to the fullest. He led the public demonstrations of students from different universities in Metro Manila against the bill, passed into law by then President Manuel Quezon, attempting to unwarrantly raise the salaries of representatives in Congress.
He was untiring. It was also during this time that he founded, together with Ernesto R. Rodriguez, Jr. and Fr. Ewing of Ateneo de Manila, the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, an organization of school organs nationwide which worked for the upliftment of campus journalism.
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“I want to warn, Mr. President,” foretold the 24-year-old to the men in suits and graying hair, “of a future condition in our Philippine Republic, when we shall no longer be under the tutelage of any foreign power when we shall have to work for our own destiny, I want to say that I am not very positive in stating here that we shall have a dictatorship because the structure of the government we are creating permits its establishment, but the power to promulgate rules and regulations will give rise to a strongman who may, in a desire to gratify his personal ambitions, seize the reins of government… The attitude of this assembly may be in favor of giving that power to the president, but I humbly raise my voice.” But the men in suits had had enough.
Then a vision.
While still a young law student in 1932, Vinzons expressed his dream of a unified Malaysia. It is a dream to “extend our vision beyond our territorial boundaries, when every Malay nation will raise itself from its local peculiar interests… when we, in the vision of a united state working in concert to adopt a common language and overcome our frailties, so by our renewed radical vitality, may give birth to a new nationalism, that of Malaysia redeemed.” This he said in “Malaysia Irredenta,” an oration that won him the Quezon gold medal in oratory.
In 1934, he headed the majority party Young Philippines, founded in an effort to unite the youth of the land. Winning a seat in the Constitutional Convention, Vinzons introduced the provision C.P. 226, granting academic freedom to the state university and worked for the provision making Tagalog the national language.
But success did not taint him. Once, while in Legaspi, Bintao was invited by his old friend Gorio, a barber, to go to a modern hotel for the duration of his stay as he was, at the time, bunking in a third-class lodging house. But Bintao, the governor, was offended: “Gorio, I stay where you stay. I am not used to spring beds.”
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The walls reverberated. The country’s freedom was about to be signed.
“I voted no in the Committee, and I now vote no,” was the young constitutionalist’s answer on the debate to include in the Preamble the clause “offered us by the government and people of the United States of America.”
“The history of American colonization in the Philippines is unique,” he said. “From the first pronouncements of American officials here… the policy has always been to train the Filipinos and to grant eventually their freedom.”
War broke out.
Vinzons was captured on July 8, 1942, together with his father, Don Gavino, his eldest son, Wenceslao, Jr., his daughters, Grace and Ranavalona, and the family cook. His wife, Liwayway Gonzales, was captured, too. Even with child, Liwayway was tortured till she admitted she was Vinzons’s wife.
On a fateful day of July 1942, Lt. Vinzons was paraded around the marketplace. He was pale, unshaven, and malaria-stricken. A colleague said he smiled and waved to friends.
Then Benigno Aquino, Sr. came.
He was then secretary of the Interior of the Japanese government, in the company of bayonets and beribboned officers of the Japanese military administration. A public meeting took place. My province, the secretary said, is like a water container with a leaking faucet—it has to be plugged tight.
Death could be the only sentence.
The day after Aquino left, Vinzons disappeared. An army communique announced he had been killed while trying to escape.
But eyewitnesses say this was a lie. Bintao had adamantly refused to collaborate despite threats and promises. He had to be killed. But how? An execution would trigger public outcry—a martyr can only fuel a guerilla cause.
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And the voice, strong with conviction, pleaded for everyone to hear: “The struggle, Mr. President, will be of a Filipino against a fellow citizen, an individual against a group of individuals, like the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, labor against capital. We should have a broader view of the future if we want the government we are establishing to be stable and permanent, if we want the constitution we are drafting to be enduring… lasting for all eternity.”
But before Bintao could continue, the president, in a sing-song manner, matter-of-factly said, “The time for the gentleman has expired.”
Sometime after, Vinzons was told by the Japanese that he would be taken to Manila. He was to speak before high officials of the puppet government. A continued refusal to collaborate would mean detention in Fort Santiago.
Vinzons was never seen alive after he left Daet on a truck with his guards. It is said that two kilometers from the town, Vizons was told to get off and was shot. So the news spread in Camarines Norte, in the most ridiculous message intending to express regret to the Filipino people: “Attempt to escape. So sorry, please.”
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And in the halls of the convention, Hon. Wenceslao Vinzons wished to say more: “If the convention will please concede me a few more minutes to continue—”
The gentlemen in suits voted.
“I wish to give my thanks to the members of this convention for denying me the privilege of continuing my speech,” Vinzons said. ●
References: Wenceslao Q. Vinzons: A Youth to Remember (and an excerpt: “A Voice in the Wilderness.”). Book I: The Birth of a Dreamer, by Ravanalona Vinzons-Gaite.
Published in print in the Collegian’s November 26, 1991 issue, with the headline “Bintao.”
