He is the brother of writer and activist Eman Lacaba, who was murdered in March 1976 and later honored at the Philippines' Bantayog ng mga Bayani memorial as a martyr who fought the Marcos dictatorship.

Among his most notable works during this time are his coverage of the First Quarter Storm protests for the Philippines Free Press magazine, which were compiled into the book Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage in 1982,[3] and the controversial poem "Prometheus Unbound," an acrostic poem through which he managed to trick the publishers of a pro-Marcos magazine to publish a secretly anti-Marcos message.

[3] Another influential work Lacaba wrote during this period, under the nom de plume Ruben Cuevas, was the poem "Prometheus Unbound," which was published by Focus, a magazine allied with the Marcos regime.

He worked with well-known directors like Lino Brocka and Mike de Leon in producing films that expose ordinary people's lives that experienced poverty and injustice.

According to Anima Aguiluz, the daughter of Direk Tikoy and festival programmer of Cinemanila, Bayan Ko could be found in Toronto, Canada.