The activist recalls the 1971 Manila explosion by Marcos Jr. when the candidacy appeared | Politics News

Manila, Philippines – On August 21, 1971, Gillian Jane Perez was on a three-week study trip to China when a bomb to learn about socialism exploded at a political rally being held in Manila by an opposition party.

The incident that killed nine people triggered not only the course of his life but also a series of events that changed the history of the Philippines.

The then Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos used what was known as the Plaza Miranda bombing as an excuse to attack activists and critics and order attacks on opposition groups.

It was the taste of what would come under martial law, imposed a year later.

Kabataang Makabayan (KM) or as the leader of the Abertzale Youth, a Filipino activist group with a “socialist vision,” was in front of Perez Marcos.

Marcos blamed the communist bombings and accused Perez and his group of carrying out the attack. The government saw KM as a frontline organization of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and a threat to national security.

Along with 55 other people, Perez was accused of violating the country’s Anti-Subversion Act. There was an arrest warrant for the 21-year-old if he returned to the Philippines.

“We thought it might be temporary and we could go home,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview from Europe, where he has lived for the past 40 years. If he returns to the Philippines he has asked Al Jazeera to use a nickname citing security concerns.

“At the same time, it seemed absurd to us. How can we, the leaders of so far away students, encourage something like that? ‘

Even before Marcos came to power, the Philippines had long been opposed to communism and socialist ideas, which arose in the 1930s from the workers ’movements in the country. Although outlawed in 1932, communist fighters played a key role in the guerrilla warfare against the Japanese occupation, as they did elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

After World War II, the Communists gradually lost their influence but continued to push for social reforms. Then, in 1968, the CPP was revived with its commitment to the Maoist ideas and socialist spirit in the same decade that Marcos came to power.

‘Resurrecting Marcos?’

Veteran political scientist Bobby Tuazon explained that young people and other groups without rights continued to be attracted to socialist ideas.

“It remains the main topic of discourse among students, researchers and scholars. As long as the rebellion is not addressed by the systemic roots of why it exists, socialism will create waves, ”said Tuazon, also director of the Manila-based People’s Empowerment Governance Center for People-Based Public Policy think-tank.

When what was going to be strong began to hold up to dissent, the party became comfortable against Marcos. Young activists calling for social reforms became the perfect bogeymen in an attempt to justify retaining power.

In the background of a deeper Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, hysteria against communism prevailed. Even now, attacking opponents as ‘communist’, known as the ‘red label’, remains a political tool.

Incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte has also been accused of being labeled as a “terrorist” threat by anti-government critics who need to be “communist” and “neutralized,” and there is now a chance of another Marcos presidential candidate in the Philippines.

Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. the only son of the powerful has announced that he will run for president in 2022, 50 years after the martial law was enacted.

“The nation remains under Duterte’s authoritarian regime, ordering its security and police forces to pursue activists. No change in Marcos,” Tuazon said, noting that the return of a second Marcos member will increase the witch-hunt for political dissidents in the state.

Marcos Jr. himself is close to the Chinese government and has held frequent meetings with Beijing’s representative in Manila. When he was a senator, he favored talks between the Philippine government and communist rebels. But he has also backed many of President Duterte’s policies, which he now calls communists “terrorists”.

“Years of martial law should not be repeated at the hands of another Marcos or an ally of Marcos and will not prevail,” Perez warned.

Life in China

When Perez arrived in China as a young activist, the country was in a state of change.

While Vietnam was supporting the Viet Cong in the United States, it was facing the uproar caused by the Cultural Revolution at home.

Among Perez’s friends were Chito Sta Romana, who is currently the Philippine ambassador to China, and Jaime Flor Cruz became a Beijing journalist for Time and Newsweek magazines. In 1986 Marcos was able to return to the country after being removed by a popular uprising.

Perez recalled that he last spoke to Cruz, both of whom had sought compensation through the Philippine Human Rights Claims Commission for damages resulting from exile or exile.

Their initial plan was to travel for a few weeks and attend lectures on Chinese socialism. After the bombing of the Philippines, they were treated as refugees, given a more permanent accommodation in Beijing, expanding their study trip so that they could integrate seamlessly among peasant peoples.

Perez often wrote to his mother, not informing her of his plans to go to China.

“I apologized for leaving without saying, but I wanted him to know that was part of my sentence,” he recalls. “She wrote saying she felt she had lost one of her children.”

Despite the sudden change, Perez was excited about what he found.

“We were young, we were students and activists. We went to China because we wanted to see what socialism is, ”he said.

“At the time, Maori’s Chinese foreign policy was in favor of popular struggles around the world. They thought that the countries wanted independence, the nations wanted liberation and the people wanted a revolution. “

The group traveled throughout China, trekking in the Jinggang Mountains, designated as the “cradle of the Chinese Revolution,” and stayed in Yan-an, known as the end of the Maori Long March.

By 1973, Perez and his friends were found in a factory in the town of Dayudao in the rural province of Shandong.

“Most of the days were spent working in the factory to some extent. I was hammering the metal, ”he recalled.

For another year, he and his “friends” were in a commune – a group of people from different towns who shared an economic plan – to focus on agriculture.

Each member of the toilet earned so-called “work points” in exchange for income. The points were determined by the local party cadres. Perez recalled, however, that greater value was placed on attitudes to feed socialist ideas.

“I thought how wonderful it would be to get these practices to the Philippines as a result of the revolutionary struggle,” he said, recalling his hopes of eventually rejoining the Philippine movement.

Dolua Mao

But under the Philippine martial law and outside the arrest warrant, there was no way to return home.

In 1974, Perez decided to study medicine at the Bei Yi Xue Yuan or Beijing Medical School.

In 1974, Perez decided to study medicine at the Bei Yi Xue Yuan or Beijing Medical School, and later became a physician working in Hunan. [Photo courtesy of Gillian Jane Perez]

Perez was in his bedroom in September 1976 when campus speakers announced that Mao Zedong had died in the evening. He continued the funeral music show as the students sat and waited as they stood outside their classrooms, weeping silently, he remembered.

The next day in Beijing, everyone was wearing black arms. None of them knew it yet, but Mao’s death also marked the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Perez admits that they were “abused” and says he was aware of the paintings that were dragged into the street to publicly criticize them for their mistakes. He recalls that state propaganda used the Cultural Revolution to convince the public that its abuses were endemic to socialism.

“I didn’t know it then, but problems were already arising in the Communist Party of China (CCP) and the government,” Perez said. Shortly afterwards, Deng Xiaoping rose to power.

The new leadership wanted “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” Perez said the slogan covered Deng’s desire to emulate Western capitalism.

Anti-Marcos supports a demonstration in Manila a few weeks before the removal of former President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in February 1986. [AFP: Romeo Gacad/AFP]

In early 1977, “the authorities were already telling us that we had to look for ways to get away because foreign policy was changing,” he said.

Perez was now a medical assistant in Hunan, and a growing longing for home. He dreamed of becoming a doctor in the Philippines. But with Marcos still in the country, it was still impossible to return home.

“The long exile affected my physical, mental and spiritual health,” he said. “I was taken out of my home and country. I felt lost. I was away from the familiar and separated from the people around me, ”he said.

In the aftermath of the Maori riots, he says he felt more and more welcome in China.

In 1981 he managed to apply for exile in Europe and was able to visit the Philippines briefly to visit his mother five years later, after being ousted in 1986 in a revolution known as the “popular power” of Marcos.

He compares the current situation with the millions of Filipinos who go abroad to work and believes that one day he will be able to return permanently and reunite with the rest of his family.

“The homeland is in the heart like millions of Filipino immigrants, who are forced to flee their homes. Like them, returning home will be a natural day. ”

Renowned playwright and activist Bonifacio Ilagan, however, said a restoration of Marcos will confuse Perez’s chances of returning home.

Ilagan was an activist student in the KM group along with Perez at a young age. He is now one of the leaders of the Coalition Against Marcoses and the Campaign Against Martial Law or CARMMA.

He told Al Jazeera: “If Marcos returns, it will be difficult for Gillian. It is a very real opportunity to recover even the old cases of Marcos ’years, putting them at risk. Who knows what they might do? The whole situation could be more changeable.

“The people of Morocco will try to put people without light on their side in controversial issues such as the Miranda Square bombing.”

Speaking about Perez’s alleged involvement in the 1971 bombing, Ilagan said: “It is really far from blaming activists for a dirty political move by the administration in 1971. Gillian and I were young entrepreneurs at the time, I know. He was implicated in the regime’s political agenda. “

Today, Perez still has a longing for home.