3/15/2023 0 Comments Martial law 2021 rumors![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() “There should be no repeat of the martial law years at the hands of another Marcos or a Marcos ally and they will not prevail,” Perez warned Life in China But he has also backed many of the policies of President Duterte, who has now labelled the communists as “terrorists”. When he was a senator, he supported talks between the Philippine government and the communist rebels. Marcos Jr himself is close to the Chinese government and has frequently held meetings with Beijing’s representative to Manila. No change from Marcos,” Tuazon said, warning that the return of a second Marcos member will only exacerbate the state’s witch-hunt of political dissidents. “The nation remains under the authoritarian regime of Duterte who orders his security and police forces to go after activists. The current President Rodrigo Duterte has also been accused of labelling anti-government critics as “communists” and “terrorist” threats that need to be “neutralised”, and the Philippines now faces the prospect of another Marcos running for the presidency.įerdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr, the strongman’s only son, has announced he will be a candidate for the presidency in 2022, 50 years after the declaration of martial law. Even now, attacking opponents as “communist”, known as “red-tagging”, remains a political tool. The young activists who were calling for social reforms became the perfect bogeymen as he sought to justify his hold on power.Īgainst the backdrop of a deepening Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, anti-communist hysteria was rampant. So long as the systemic roots of why there is revolt are not addressed, socialism will make waves,” said Tuazon, who also serves as the policy director for the Center for People’s Empowerment in Governance, a public policy think-tank based in Manila.Īs the would-be strongman started to clamp down on dissent, the party became a convenient foil for Marcos. “It remains a major topic of discourse in the academe, among students, researchers and scholars. ‘Marcos revival?’Īs veteran political scientist Professor Bobby Tuazon explains, young people and other disenfranchised groups continued to find socialist ideas attractive. Then in 1968, the CPP re-emerged with a commitment to Maoist ideals and energised with socialist zeal in the same decade that Marcos rose to power. Although outlawed in 1932, communist fighters played a key role in the guerrilla fight against Japanese occupation, as they did in other parts of Southeast Asia.Īfter World War II, the communists gradually lost their influence but they continued to push for social reforms. ![]() How could we, student leaders so far away, instigate something like that?”Įven before Marcos came to power, the Philippines had long been wary of communism and socialist ideas, which first emerged out of the country’s workers’ movements in the 1930s. She has requested Al Jazeera to use a pseudonym citing security concerns if she returns to the Philippines. “We thought it might be temporary and we could go home,” she told Al Jazeera in an interview from Europe, where she has lived for the past 40 years. An arrest warrant awaited the 21-year-old if she were to return to the Philippines. The government also labelled KM a front organisation of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and a threat to national security.Īlong with 55 other people, Perez was charged with violating the country’s Anti-Subversion Law. Marcos blamed the bombing on the communists and accused Perez and her group of masterminding the attack. It was a taste of what was to come under martial law – imposed a year later.Īs a leader of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), or Patriotic Youth, an activist Filipino group with a “socialist perspective”, Perez was among those in Marcos’s sights. Then-Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos used what became known as the Plaza Miranda bombing as a pretext to crack down on activists and critics and order raids on opposition groups. The incident, which left nine people dead, set in motion a sequence of events that changed not only the trajectory of her life but the history of the Philippines. Manila, Philippines – On August 21, 1971, Gillian Jane Perez was in transit to China for a three-week study trip to learn about socialism when a bomb exploded at a political rally being held by an opposition party in Manila. ![]()
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