“Luising,” the pet name by which family and friends called Luis General Jr., was a young man during the years of Japanese occupation in the Philippines. He joined the US Armed Forces in the Far East (USAFFE), and was wounded in battles fought against the Japanese in Quezon province. After Bataan fell, he moved to the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) and took a job as a resistance writer using the pen name Louie Gonzaga. He was in the literary section of an association of young people called Love Thy Neighbor Club, a cover to help spread anti-Japanese propaganda.
His high school English teacher inspired him to learn to write poetry. He liked poetry so much he joined poetry-writing contests before the war and during the war, wrote wartime poems as well as love poems for Maria, the girl who would be his future wife. Some of the poems he wrote during this period are published in a collection titled Serenade to a Stoic & Other Poems (1993).
When the war ended, Luis General Jr. went on to study law, first in Silliman University in Dumaguete. He completed his law degree at the University of Nueva Caceres (UNC) in his hometown of Naga City, part of the pioneer batch of the school’s law graduates. He started his law practice soon after, becoming one of the city’s first homegrown lawyers.
He applied and was immediately accepted to join the faculty of the UNC School of Law. For 29 years, he taught law subjects there as well as undergraduate subjects such as political science, Philippine history, and even the Rizal course. He became involved in the school’s history department and the Bikol Culture Studies, and served as adviser to the Law Council and the Law Debating Team.
While building his law practice, Luis General Jr. also began writing for the local newspapers. He started in 1959 with the Naga Times as news writer, editorial writer, editor and columnist, and then under the Marcos era, with respected papers Balalong and Handiong, writing editorials and running a column. As Naga Times editor he was chosen president of the Naga City Press and Radio Club for 1969-1970. Under his helm Naga Times was chosen “most outstanding provincial newspaper” in 1971 by the Federation of Provincial Press Cubs of the Philippines. Renowned writer Bienvenido Santos, who also once taught at the UNC, once described General “the best essay writer in the land.”
His son Luis Ruben says he was “old school” and strict, but he had a wiry sense of humor. He was also notably religious, a devotee of the Bicol Catholic patroness Nuestra Señora de Peñafrancia, and in his youth was active in the Catholic Cursillo movement, where he also wrote for its newsletter The Rainbow.
His interests ranged from politics to history, Bikol culture, religion and American baseball — his favorite team was the St. Louis Cardinals. He also sang and was a known lover of music.
In 1985, he wrote his own translation of Jose Rizal’s “Mi Ultimo Adios,” giving it the title “Our Plundered Paradise.” The translation was cited in the 1992 Rizal Day editorial of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
General’s early nationalism was inspired by the late Senator Claro M. Recto. But his experience fighting the Japanese, made it almost certain that as a lawyer, General would be fighting a war for justice. One of his law teachers called him “Louie the Just.” He was one of five lawyers from his area recommended in 1967 to the Citizens Legal Assistance Committee of the Philippine Bar Association (PBA).
He ran to become a member of the 1971 Constitutional Convention, believing the country’s problems were taking it to the verge of a revolution and he had to support efforts for peaceful reform. He fought very hard and with minimal resources but lost,
It was his critical writing that made the greater impact. Marcos had him arrested just days after declaring a martial law. Luis General Jr., together with his lawyer friend, J. Antonio Carpio, and several local journalists, were taken to Camp Canuto, in Sagorong, Pili, Camarines Sur, and spent about a month in prison. Atty. Carpio named the group of prisoners “Stalag 1.” Archbishop Teopisto Alberto of Nueva Caceres personally went to President Marcos and asked that the group be released to his custody.
As a teacher under an authoritarian government, General faced the tricky situation of having to teach the 1973 Marcos Constitution that was based on authoritarian principles. He thought that the Constitution was contrary to principles of political law, The activist lawyer in him found ways of teaching how politics interfered with law. Many of his students would later become lawyers and even judges themselves.
When the late senator Jose W. Diokno organized the Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG), General and Carpio were one of its earliest adherents and members. General became FLAG coordinator for Camarines Sur from 1977 to 1986, and then coordinator for the entire region of Bikol up to 1997. The two Bikol lawyers also became leaders of the then newly-organized provincial chapter of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP). They were also members of the Camarines Sur Bar Association. They soon had a reputation in the Bikol region as courageous lawyers defending human rights.
In June 1981 a protest rally of about 3,000 was violently dispersed in Daet, Camarines Norte. Farmers were holding the march, protesting what they called a farcical presidential elections and calling for its boycott. They were moving towards Daet when 50 Philippine Constabulary (PC) men intercepted them and opened fire. Four protesters were killed and 50 others wounded as a result of the shooting. Carpio, chair of the Kilusang Mamamayan para sa Tunay na Demokrasya (KMTD) under whose name the protest rally was organized, was himself arrested and put in prison, together with fellow KMTD leader Grace Vinzons Magana.
Luis General Jr., then serving as vice-chair of KMTD, was spared an arrest. But he boldly used his column in Balalong to give the local people updates about the massacre and the detention of the two KMTD leaders. He wrote about the petitions coming from Mindanao seeking the release of the detained leaders. He also wrote about the FLAG habeas corpus petition filed with the Supreme Court, arguing that President Marcos, having supposedly lifted martial law that year, no longer had authority to order the arrest of Carpio and Magana. (At the Supreme Court hearing of the petition, government lawyer Estelito Mendoza informed the court that President Marcos had already ordered the two leaders released and so the petition was no longer necessary. The two detained leaders were indeed set free the following day.)
He also wrote about the case of the young Naga activist, Alexander Belone II, who was killed in an armed encounter, but where parts of his body were found mutilated by his captors. “The dissidence going on in the country is unfortunate, but it would be most tragic if the hatred manifested in the outrage against the body of a dead rebel will be allowed to dominate the acts of otherwise rational men. In the end, such hatred will swallow all of us,” he wrote.
In a 1979 article with the sarcastic title “The world is flat,” he wrote: “It is time we realize that our world is still round and call a dictatorial spade, a dictatorial spade, not a democratic shovel.”
His fearless reports and commentaries provided the people of Naga and Camarines Sur a chronicle of the martial law years that successfully defied the Marcos regime’s strict censorship rules. “If we must be silenced because we remain true to (our) duty, that would be preferable to being licensed to publish but prevented to speak out the truth in fulfillment of that duty,” General wrote.
His editorials and columns made such an impact he was called “the conscience of the community.” Of the thousands of articles he had written in five decades, a good number have been collected into a volume titled Luis General Jr. (1921-2021): A Centennial Memorial. They reveal his scholarship in Bikol history, and his deep grounding in politics, law, justice and human rights.
Luis General Jr. was the target of at least one assassination attempt but this did not stop him. After the Marcoses fled the country in 1986, General joined the political organization Kaakbay, and the Anti-Bases Coalition, becoming the latter’s vice-chair from 1987 to 1991.
General died in 1997 from natural causes.
He left behind a body of writing that is graphic proof that despite all odds, a bold and creative soul can stand up to censorship and tyranny. His adherence to his principles inspired his family, his fellow lawyers, and his Bikol community. His two sons both became lawyers, and like him, joined FLAG and became involved with various cause-oriented groups.
