Eric Torres was called Henry by the family and Eric by friends. He spent his boyhood in Gapan, Nueva Ecija, where his father worked as a goldsmith and his mother sold food. Later the family moved to Manila where the father found work designing jewelry and metal craft.
Enrique was a bright and diligent student, often winning honors in school. He liked history and was fascinated by his ancestor, one Cornelio Dizon (or Dayson), who was with the Katipunan’s Llanera Brigade. He showed talent in writing and in the visual arts. He won in essay writing contests. He joined the staff of his high school paper Ang Landas, and the National Teachers’ College’s Fiat Lux. He and his future wife Precy met in college.
Eric was a student leader in college when political ferment started to stir up Metro Manila. As student council president, he advocated for student rights and welfare. Rather than be at his 1970 graduation ceremony he was seen with other students protesting rising school fees. He also organized student support for teachers’ demands for better wages.
He joined the Katipunan ng Kabataang Demokratiko (KKD) and was its national chair from 1970 to 1972. He was also part of the KKD cultural group Tanghalang Bayan, performing in plays during street protests. His favorite poem to recite was the Amado Hernandez poem, “Kung Tuyo na ang Luha mo Aking Bayan.” The communities of Tondo, Mandaluyong and Sampaloc were his recruiting ground, where he held discussion groups with young people and even organized them to help in cleanups after floods. He managed to escape arrest during one rally because fellow rallyists shielded him.
On September 23, 1972, just after Marcos imposed martial law, Eric was picked up by the Metrocom but released the same day. At the time, he was teaching at the Philippine College of Commerce High School, and already married with two children. The couple soon left Manila and moved to a part of Central Luzon, seeking safety from the authorities.
However in early 1975, Eric was arrested by the martial law authorities and heavily tortured. His family was also subjected to intense harassment although the children were soon let go. Eric and Precy were confined in Camp Olivas, then later moved to Camp Crame and after that, Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan. In 1977, they were released after the Regional Trial Court in Angeles City declared that the subversion charges against them had no basis.
Eric’s first job after his release from prison was as a helper in his sister’s shoe shop in Manila. Later OB Montessori School in San Juan hired him as an artist. Then in 1979, he returned to teaching at the high school department of the Philippine College of Technological Resources in Valenzuela.
Soon he was back to organizing. In 1982, he helped put up the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT) and the Teacher Center of the Philippines (TCP), both becoming crucial in strengthening teachers’ organizations, particularly under an authoritarian government.
He served as TCP executive director from 1982 to 1986 and ACT chairperson from 1989 to 2001. He authored the Manual of Legal Rights for Teachers and Education Workers (1984). He was also a member of the Education Forum (EF), a teacher development program.
After the Marcos dictatorship ended, Eric taught at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP) and continued his activism for teachers. Faculty and non-teaching personnel of the Gregorio Araneta University Foundation (GAUF), Jose Rizal College, University of the East (UE) and other schools, remember him as having helped them in their protest actions. Under his leadership, ACT, together with the Alliance of Rizal and Metro Manila Public Elementary and Secondary School Teachers (ARMMPESST) called a nationwide strike to press for increases in teachers’ wages and for reforms in the Philippine education system. Some 30,000 teachers in Metro Manila and Central Luzon joined this action.
Then in 1992, while serving as ACT chairperson, he was arrested again, for supporting still another teachers’ strike for salary standardization. Heavily-armed men forced themselves into his house one early morning, took him and brought him to the police station where he was charged with inciting to sedition. His wife Precy, a group of teachers, and even some politicians raised the money for his bail.Finally in 1989, thanks to years of lobbying and bold political action, the Compensation and Position Classification Act (RA 6758), which standardized salaries in government, was enacted.
In 2004, while still working as a teacher at PUP, Eric died of aneurysm. He was 56 years old.
