Much of what I wrote about in the novel is happening again today. Not because I could foresee the return of the Marcoses, but because so little has changed. In the novel as in the Philippines, the revolution that toppled Marcos was a revolution in name only: power changed hands, but remained within the same class. In The Betrayedthe daughters of the dictator’s assassinated opponent fall in love with the same man - the dictator’s godson. In their circle, everyone knows each other.
We heard stories about the Marcoses’ extravagances, the betrayals and shifts in loyalties. When we talked to friends on the phone, we turned on a radio near the receiver to block wire-tapping. We heard of people imprisoned, tortured, killed, their bodies turning up days or weeks later in a state that served as a warning to all who saw them. We were taught to keep quiet. In convent school, a nun admonished us not to resist should rebels or army soldiers enter our houses at night.
The Betrayed is a political novel, but it is also, perhaps essentially, a novel about how we try and too often fail to love. How we may long for one person, against all reason. Pilar, the honest, upright sister, falls in love with her sister Lali’s husband. And Lali, more experienced in matters of the flesh and more desperate, offers Pilar to her husband to save her marriage. Let them go through it to the end, Lali thinks. Let their passion burn itself out.
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