YOUTHFUL IDEALISM I was pretty young when [I became involved in] activism. I was studying philosophy and for the priesthood in 1972 when [president Ferdinand] Marcos declared martial law. After normal rallies were pushed underground, I was recruited to a movement called the Philippine Democratic Socialist Party. I would attend secret indoctrination sessions, then graduated to sending coded messages and money. I'd pretend to be jogging but actually I'd have something tucked somewhere in my running gear.
It was a very dangerous time. Some of us disappeared and were killed - people close to me. I lived in a protected compound, walled, with guards, but others didn't. One story is particularly gory: a farmer friend of mine was organising farmers and one evening he disappeared. The following morning his wife pushed the front door open and saw something roll away - her husband's head.
OUT OF THE WAY In my homilies I would attack Imelda [Marcos] and her husband all the time. Someone told me, 'You'd better stop your attacks on the government because you're under surveillance'. Then Cardinal [Jaime] Sin [a former archbishop of Manila] called and said, 'I think you should go on a retreat'. They wanted me out of trouble. I was [in Rome, Italy] for four years and [that time was] difficult because they were crucial years in the struggle against Marcos.
ACTION AND REACTION After the revolution, in 1987, we were supposed to be a free country but a lot of other things happened; natural disasters like landslides and the Pinatubo eruption and coup d'etats. I was teaching and turned the seminary into a centre of operations for crisis response. We also helped those against the 1990 coup against [Corazon] Aquino. The next year, Cardinal Sin said, 'I think you should leave the seminary.' Some of the priests did not like the idea of me disrupting classes, taking seminarians from their prayers and sleep and making them carry sacks of rice.
THE SERPENT'S KISS In my first parish I took care of wild animals on the rooftop of my convent. I had a crocodile, several snakes, a peacock, wild boar, a skunk, squirrels and an endless throng of children coming in. But my first media name was not nice. They took a picture of me with my tamest animal - a 12-foot python I named Carla - around my shoulders. I was called the Snake Priest.
FIRST STEPS I first got the idea to run in celebration of the Centennial [the anniversary of the Philippine revolution against Spain]. I met the guy who had run across the entire Philippines and asked, 'Can I do it?' He asked how old I was and I said 40 - and he laughed. He had been 23. But the best age for long-distance running is 40 to 60, because ultra-running requires a lot of mental toughness.
In 1996, I jogged 782km in 18 days - 40km to 50km a day. I ran across [the southern Philippine island of] Mindanao for peace because, well, there's always a peace and order problem in Mindanao. The following year I ran 1,136km across six major island groups. Then I said 'no more' but that July, [Joseph] Estrada became president and he was corrupt, immoral and everything else, so it was back to running - often with the media running after me. I had seen [Hollywood movie] Forrest Gump but remember, he didn't know what he was running for.
THE PEN AND A PEN I was at the Manila Peninsula hotel [in November 2007] for the [rebellion against President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo] but it wasn't a coup. I don't know what they intended me to do, actually - friends invited me. The bishops involved were my friends and [former vice-president Teofisto] Guingona also - so I didn't doubt them. The whole experience and the days in prison afterwards afforded me insight into the lives of the rebel soldiers and their sacrifices in jail. The leader of the mutiny, Senator [Antonio] Trillanes won a six-year term in 2004 by campaigning from behind bars. [Trillanes had been jailed for a 2003 mutiny in which he and a group of 321 armed soldiers took control of the Oakwood apartment block in Makati City, Manila.] His main advocacy is to prove the president cheated in the last election. His term will outlive hers, so there are clear indications there may not be elections in Philippines because the incumbent won't want to face trial.
THE WILL TO LIVE It's not considered safe for me at home right now but there's work to do here at the Asian Human Rights Commission. After hours, I run a support group for Filipinas with cancer. Once a domestic helper gets cancer, between earning a living, supporting their family and trying to keep alive, the stress is unimaginable. They get into real debt. 'I'm dying, I don't want to live,' is a common refrain. I tell them to say it slowly, to take a deep breath, say it and mean it and they usually take it back. Then I get them to try, 'I'm alive, I'm happy, I want to live'. [The group] is called Buhay Ka, 'I'm alive'.