NEVER NOT MEET YOUR HEROES: Balik-Loob and the burden of false redemption

"Never meet your heroes" — a timeless adage that cautions admirers against blind idolization, often because the reality behind these figures fails to live up to the myth. Ask children who their heroes are, and many will name Cardo Dalisay, Tanggol, or other fictional and real-life authority figures known for their violent crusades against crime. Yet, in the shadows of these glorified personas are those branded as villains — voices judged by society and stories left untold. 

Ironically, these so-called antagonists often hold truths worth hearing, while some of our celebrated "heroes" bear responsibility for the chaos they claim to fight. This juxtaposition of idolized power and silenced truths challenges us to reconsider: who truly deserves to be heard? And perhaps more importantly — should we still meet our heroes?

Just like when we hear the word "New People’s Army” (NPA), it becomes easy to lose our sense of humanity by demonizing them and blaming them for every atrocity occurring across the Philippines. Whether it is a propaganda or reality — and more often the latter — the government continues to condemn this group without offering real, long-term solutions, leading to widespread, uncontrollable red-tagging of civil groups, journalists, activists, and even ordinary citizens who dare to speak. 

Far from the usual depiction of an enemy of humanity, Kara David engages with individuals often dismissed as unorthodox and immerses herself fully in their world — one where violence is not the focus, but rather the quiet reality of returning to the very status quo they once risked everything to defy.

I-Witness — GMA documentaries in general — has long proven to be authentic and fearless, a trait made even more evident in the episode “Balik-Loob.” Kara David boldly unpacks the life of Teodorico “Ka Omar” Manzano, a former commander of the New People’s Army who later joined the Rebolusyunaryong Hukbong Bayan (RHB). The episode reveals what lies behind every life the state deems expendable: injustices and abuses of power committed by the very people meant to serve and protect them. Ka Omar’s voice speaks not only of the physical wound on his jaw — caused by a gunshot — but also of the decades of resistance and defiance he led in pursuit of self-determination, even at the cost of a peaceful, ordinary life.

Kara David quietly but powerfully dismantles the long-standing stigma that paints all NPA members as societal threats — not through exposition, but through presence. She lets Ka Omar’s silence, gestures, and quiet hospitality do the talking. From the outset, the documentary reframes the viewer’s lens, offering a deeply human portrait of a man whom people have been indoctrinated to see as dangerous. Ka Omar is not the cold-blooded insurgent portrayed in government propaganda, but a soft-spoken father tending to the rhythms of rural life. In his modest home, far removed from battlegrounds and slogans, he breathes not as a monster forged by myth, but as a man — wounded, reflective, and resolutely human.

From the rawness of the opening scenes to the slow build of an ominous atmosphere, I-Witness refuses to spoon-feed the audience a definition of balik-loob. Instead, it reveals its meaning through an action — showing Ka Omar wielding knives not to behead enemies, but to harvest bamboo for his family’s survival. This imagery powerfully encapsulates the harsh reality faced by those marginalized by the government: individuals forced to return to a life of poverty and uncertainty in exchange for a promise of peace. 

The dilapidated wooden house he shares with his family — one typhoon away from collapse — visibly reflects the neglect that persists even after surrender. It forces us to ask: What truly awaits those who lay down their arms? What do they gain when liberty and dignity are dictated not by their ideals, but by a system that once drove them to rebellion?

Although Ka Omar’s point of view is compelling on its own, I-Witness deepens the narrative by introducing Ormelita Manzano, or “Ka Lorna,” one of Ka Omar’s sisters, who also joined the NPA. At first, the documentary presents her as a nurturing mother caring for her child, but later reveals her as someone who, too, took up arms in response to systemic injustice. This is a commendable transition — subtle yet powerful — that illustrates how even the most unassuming members of a community can be driven to exchange domestic life for rebellion when justice remains out of reach. 

Ka Lorna recalls how the military once tortured civilians simply for living in a barangay suspected of harboring rebels — a chilling glimpse into how red-tagging became institutionalized violence. The revelation that their family transformed from mourning the wrongful death of a brother at the hands of the military to demanding justice through direct resistance highlights that when the state silences one’s pain, the only language left may be that of defiance.

But Ka Lorna’s story is not an isolated case of politicized grief. The documentary soon shifts to another haunting truth: it was not the NPA who first brought violence into their community, but the state itself, when it opened fire on the very school where children in the community were studying. The image of crumbled stones — the only trace of what was once a school — raises a painful but necessary question: Who should truly be held accountable for the lack of peace and security that continues to harm innocent lives, especially children? 

The story deepens further with Ka Omar’s brother, Rogelio, who also joined the NPA for the same reasons. His testimony unravels the long-standing narrative that equates the military with protection, instead exposing the brutal reality of state-sanctioned violence and the horror of death that the armed forces inflicted in the past.

Yet the personal is always entangled with the political.

 

Just like the now quiet, ordinary lives of the siblings, another former NPA member, Ka Ronald, has redirected his strength toward wood carving to earn a living — a courageous renewal despite his parents being massacred by the military. Exhausted from trekking from a remote area to a more populated village, Ka Omar delivers bamboo — painstakingly trimmed of its branches — to him. 

On the surface, Ka Omar’s bamboo delivery — earning him just 140 pesos every few weeks — seems like a quiet testament to renewal. But beneath that image lies a harder truth: Balik-loob only matters when their labor is deemed useful by the state. The government embraces them not for their voices or ideals, but for their tamed, depoliticized, and commodified labor. Through the emotional weight of the documentary’s imagery, it becomes painfully clear that their return to the community is not a triumphant homecoming, but a quiet descent — from being feared disruptors of elite comfort to subdued and stagnant citizens, still denied the very rights their movement once fought to secure.

 

From past colonizations to extrajudicial killings and other brutalities, violence has never been the exception — it has always been our lived reality. While we must not condone the violent and armed tactics that have resulted in the deaths of innocent people, the documentary challenges the blind subservience many have toward a government that coerces us to settle for being passive citizens — accepting political incompetence as normal, even as it silently governs the conditions of our everyday survival.

Whether it is Ka Omar, his siblings, or Ka Ronald, all have been equally denied justice for the brutal and unjust killings of their loved ones. Before they resorted to rebellion, their primary catalyst was injustice — something any of us might respond to when those we love are harmed or victimized. The only difference is that they transformed their grief into a revolution — one that continues to expose and threaten the state’s complicit stance and failure to deliver justice. 

And on National Campus Press Freedom Day, a recurring question always lingers with us: How free is a press that dares not question power?

Even in its quietest moments, Balik-Loob dares to pose one of the most urgent challenges of our time: to confront our so-called heroes — not to glorify them further, but to rigorously examine the social positions they occupy and the systems of power they uphold. In a country where authority is too often misconstrued as virtue, questioning the system is not just morally encouraged, but a political necessity. It demands more than skepticism — it requires a radical unlearning of narratives designed to insulate the powerful and vilify the marginalized. 

To meet our heroes, then, is to meet them with discomfort: to assess how their decisions, silence, or aggression have reinforced injustices that disproportionately fall upon the poor, the rural, and the silenced. When we interrogate the privileges they enjoy, we claim the power to call for ethical accountability, especially when exclusion is normalized by the very system these heroes are celebrated and compensated for defending.

Paradoxically, it is also transformative when, like Kara David, we take risks to give voice to those long cast as villains — approaching them not with suspicion, but with openness and a readiness to recalibrate our moral compass. Doing so expands our capacity to grapple with uncomfortable truths and engage with complex realities, including the need to understand and amplify narratives that power has long suppressed. How unsettling — and necessary — it is to confront the fact that these so-called villains were once ordinary members of their communities, forced into resistance not by irrationality, but by the very institutions we have been conditioned to revere.

In a media landscape shaped by political pressure and corporate interests, Kara David stands out — choosing people over power and moral clarity over neutrality. This episode of I-Witness is proof of that conviction. And more often than not, our awareness and assertion for people in the grassroots redefines the way we traditionally expect a hero to be, breaking stereotypes and welcoming radical imagination. 

We ensure that we leave a mark on the people, just like how Kara David ends the documentary with a timely reminder: “Magpunla ka ng karahasan, mag-aani ka ng digmaan. Magpunla ka ng katarungan, mag-aani ka ng kapayapaan.” 

As young journalists, may we be reminded that our highest calling is not just to tell stories, but to confront systems, challenge silence, and return dignity to the marginalized. Balik-loob is not simply a return to the state — it is a return to justice. 

And until that justice is realized, no one truly comes home.