Edgar Jopson

In 1955, two years after their business was established, the family moved to Philamlife Homes in Quezon City where they were invited to open a branch in the subdivision.

A Jesuit priest who attended the ceremony approached Ed's father to encourage him to enroll at the Ateneo Grade School.

The nickname Edjop stuck on him when his geometry teacher failed to pronounce "Jopson" in the Spanish pronunciation, giving it a strong "J" sound instead of "H".

Thanks to a Jesuit education that encouraged Ateneans to be "men for others", Ed considered going into the priesthood but realized after a retreat that he does not need to enter the seminary to be able to help people.

However, during a trip to Hong Kong, Ed disclosed to his father that he was not comfortable being class valedictorian because of the added weight it carried on his life.

She was named after both Teresa Magbanua, a heroine of the Philippine Revolution, and Lorena Barros, a UG martyr who died in a military encounter.

[9] Jopson's political ascent began in college when he was inspired by an article from the Guidon, Ateneo's campus newspaper, in 1968, entitled "Down from the Hill.

[10] He also ran for the presidency of the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) in mid-1969, just as Marcos won his second term,[11] a position which became critical because of the impending constitutional convention slated for 1971.

Though this may be the case, Salanga noted Jopson's lack of real joy from winning the award as he was recognized as the leader of a group divided.

He only accepted the award as a strategic political move so as to reorient the NUSP and regain the popularity it once had, which made the radical groups hate him even more.

[13] During former President Marcos' State of the Nation Address on January 26, 1970, NUSP and other moderate groups organized a demonstration wherein students from different assembly points would converge in front of the Philippine Congress, calling for a non-partisan Constitutional Convention.

Things began to get out of hand and, in an attempt to control the crowd and protect the students by ending the program early, Jopson took to the stage to seize the microphones to prevent one of the radical leaders, Gary Olivar, from delivering his speech.

Ed came to realize this and in an article for the Manila Times on Feb 7, 1970 said that he calls on all youth and student groups to unite as one after the incident which failed to do so.

Jopson and the other members of NUSP formed Buklod Kalayaan, Freedom Organization so as to serve as the youth arm of the reformist political movement.

The socialist movement in China fascinated Jopson, furthermore because the delegation was unable to see the brutal upheaval occurring during the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

Upon his return from China, he had begun to veer away from reformism and hope from the Constitution Convention, going so far as to say to his fellows in NUSP that perhaps they were wrong in upholding a moderate stance.

On the evening of September 22, his sisters climbed up their roof to serve as lookouts for any possibility of military raids though they knew he was not on the government’s list at the time.

[21] Though several career options were presented to Jopson, he chose to work as a low-level clerk in a prominent labor federation (PAFLU) in Tondo.

[21] Rigoberto Tiglao, a member of Kabataang Makabayan, one of the radical groups present during the First Quarter Storm, contacted him after hearing news of his participation in PAFLU after leaving NUSP.

Though he was welcomed by some members, many remained apprehensive because of his stature as an institution of reformism in the country, with others going so far as to say that his application was merely a ploy to infiltrate the party to retrieve information.

Aguinaldo was an intelligence officer competing with other members of the military, including the guards assigned to watch and interrogate Jopson.

What came out of it was a 200-page document that chronicled every possible facet of life in Mindanao from its terrain to its history, even including companies and kingpins that dominated the island.

[31] Jopson returned to Luzon in July 1980 to attend the 8th plenum of the Party’s Central Committee in Bicol, which lasted three months.

[32] Jopson returned to Manila in June 1981, but decided to come back soon after by November because of a raid in Mindanao that killed Magtanggol Roque and led to the capture of Benjamin de Vera, two top party leaders.

Ed decided to extend his stay in Mindanao a few weeks past his arranged departure (in December) to aid a cadre with personal problems she was facing.

[35] Jopson's name is included among those listed on the memorial wall of the Bantayog ng mga Bayani, a museum dedicated to commemorating the Martial Law Martyrs.

[36] His story was featured in Living and Dying: In Memory of 11 Ateneo de Manila Martial Law Activists (2007) and Six Young Filipino Martyrs (1997).