A day in the lives of one-time communist rebels

[Second of five parts]

THE road to Capas, Tarlac, was long, even if reckoned from Angeles City, which was our first stop for the journey from Manila. Diego was driving, and the trip was reminiscent of those days in the latter half of the 80s when we would go to meetings of our intelligence unit in the house of Jake, a Bulacan entrepreneur, who was the third member of our collective; at other times, Diego and Jake would go to Clark Field to case, in intel lingo, movements of American soldiers. The difference between then and now was that, before, Diego drove his yellow worn-down Volkswagen Beetle; this time around, he steered a sedan that endured the tough unpaved, very narrow passageways meandering across a vast expanse of rice paddies with newly-planted palay seedlings.