I HAD a talk a few months ago with members of the Atenews from Ateneo de Davao, when one of its young lady staff writers asked me: “How to be like Beng?”
That question was a bit amusing and personal. I knew Benjaline “Beng” Hernandez, from each step of her journey from student to writer-activist and to that sad day of April 5, 2002. Maybe it’s because of that sad ending, my first answer was: “I don’t want you guys to die yet.”
Beng’s birthday comes this November 21, and I’m thinking of that question again from the young writers who see her portrait hanging in the Atenews office and wonder who was Beng.
I’ll try to answer now how to be like Benjaline Hernandez.
How to be like Beng? Read books. Her favorite author is Stephen King, master of psychology and horror. Strange choice? No. King teaches you the art of the narrative, multiple narratives and views, the art of detail and the expression of emotions.
She also loved mythology. She also read politics. Reading makes words your guide to the worlds and lives of people that you may encounter later in life and in your works.
To be like Beng, ask questions. That’s how I first met her. She was the one who asked questions no end from a group of students visiting a strike camp of Alcantara and Sons. She asked a lot of questions, because she wanted to know. What were the strikers fighting for? What led them to this point? Could there be any other solutions? She wasn’t even a staff writer then for Atenews, but she asked questions like a journalist do. Ask questions, not just for the catchphrase for the headlines. But to find answers.
Beng was caring. That’s how everyone describes her best. Thoughtful, a listening ear, always sharing an advice, a story, a book, a thought. Perhaps that comes from being the eldest in the family. That warmth translates to caring about the people she encountered, and the passion to write and act for them.
Be gutsy. Beng was just a newbie to the Atenews and College Editors Guild of the Philippines when she readily took on the task of handling a group discussion on Philippine social ills. She handled it well because she knew the topic by heart.
Be involved. The Purple Rose campaign by Gabriela against sexual oppression. The impeachment against Erap and later Edsa 2. The fact-finding to militarized villages. She was there.
Involve your family. She never ceased explaining things to her family then. That somehow helped them understand the journey she took. These past years, her mother Evan is joining rallies and campaigns especially for the families of the victims of political killings and disappearances. Her legacy lives in them.
Write for truth. Write for what should be just. If young writers can scan the Atenews archives, most especially the tribute issue in 2003. Her poems, her articles come from the heart.
To Beng, it’s your 37th birthday this November 21. You are remembered by us friends and family, and by young people who want to be like you. Perhaps you’ll be giggling about this, and be writing another poem.
“There are farmers, laborers, women who are youth. This is enough to trigger change in the ills of the society…. let us bring justice to the blood that freed us….” – from Beng Hernandez’s article “The Promise” in 1999.
Beng was College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) vice president for Mindanao and Karapatan Southern Mindanao deputy secretary in 2002-2003.
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