31.12.2006

Interview with

AQUILINO “Nene” Q. PIMENTEL, JR.

BURMA DIGEST: Let us first talk about your political life: _

i.                     Please kindly tell us about your political party.

The political party that I founded in 1982 to provide our people with an alternative to the violent opposition to the martial law government of Marcos is called PDP Laban. PDP (Partido Demokratiko Pilipino) Laban (short for Lakas ng Bayan=People Power).

PDP Laban is a grassroots party. We recruited people from the sectors that in the past only the Communists bothered to relate to: the masses, in short.

We espoused a nationalist orientation in politics. We advocated the removal of the U.S. military bases even then (this was in the '80s. the Bases were removed in 1991). We promoted people participation in matters of political, social and economic development.

Our party was in the forefront of the campaign of Corazon Aquino against Marcos in the elections of 1986. We succeeded in ousting Marcos peacefully.

ii.                   About your constituency which you represent in the Senate?

As a senator, I represent the entire country. Senators (there are 24 of us) who are elected throughout the nation.

In the Senate, I promoted local governments, cooperatives, sports development, and more recently, the adoption of biofuels as an alternative to crude or fossil fuels, and the abolition of the death penalty. Also, bills that prohibit trafficking with children and women and relentless senatorial investigations into corruption in government and extra judicial killings.

I am also a supporter of the right of the Burmese people to embark on a course of democracy, to be led by people of their choice and not by ruthless military men of the kind who now run roughshod over the NLD, the ethnic minorities and Dame Aung.

iii.                  About your political believes?

I believe in the primacy of the Filipino in my own country. Although I also believe in human rights that transcend class origins, ethnicity, and other considerations.

I believe in promoting self reliance for the things that we need. Although I also believe in cooperating with other countries and other peoples to achieve peace and prosperity for the peoples of a borderless world.

iv.                  How you first became interested in Burma’s pro-democracy movement?

It must have been in 1992 towards the end of my first term as a senator that I got invited to Chiang Mai to talk with Burmese exiles about the kind of constitutional government that could be instituted in the country after the exit of the SLORC.

Earlier, I learned of the struggle of the ethnic minorities, Daw Aung and the NLD to have a place under the Burmese sun. And I thought to myself, my country has been blessed in that we got rid of a dictator (Marcos) and were now on the road to the restoration of our democratic experiment so why not share our own democratic experience with the Burmese?

v.                    How are you currently helping Burma’s pro-democracy movement?

I was the main sponsor of the resolution passed by the Senate condemning the military junta in Burma for suppressing the rights of their own people.

When the IPU had its international conference here two years ago, I proposed and got the Human Rights Committee of the IPU to pass a resolution expressing concern about the plight of the people of Burma.

I have spoken out in a number of forums both in Manila and elsewhere (the most recent was this years autumn conference of the IPU in Geneva) about the problems of Burma caused by the military junta.

I intend to continue speaking out for the rights of the people of Burma while I still can.

BURMA DIGEST: The struggle in Philippine in the past for Independence, and then the people power movement for democracy in 1980s has given great inspiration for the people in Burma. So we’d like to know a lot about Philippine so that we can learn good lessons and also get huge inspiration.

i.                     Please briefly tell us about your country’s greatest national hero Mr. Jose Rezal.

Jose Rizal was a man of peace. He was a writer (like my friend, Tayza). He wrote two political novels: Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo in Spanish. The novels decried the abuses of Spanish authorities in the Philippines.

Our Spanish colonial masters did not like the ideas of Rizal. So they shot him in what is now called Luneta (there's a statue of Rizal that gets a lot of attention from tourists).

Shortly after that the Filpino people revolted against Spain.

The Americans saw an opportunity to establish their presence in the Far East (meaning the Philippines). Admiral Dewey engaged the Spanish navy in a sea battle in Manila Bay and routed it.

On land, the Filipino rebels were capturing several Spanish controlled centers and were hoping that the Americans came to help them get rid of the Spaniards. Unfortunately, the Americans indeed came but not just to get rid of the Spanish Flag but to supplant it with their own.

Thus, we wound up an American colony from 1898 to 1946 when we gained our independence as a people.

ii.                   Please also let us know about the Hukbalahap movement under Japanese invasion.

HUKBALAHAP is an acronym that means HUK(BONG) BA(YAN) LA(BAN) SA HAP(ON). ARMY OF THE PEOPLE AGAINST THE JAPANESE.

It was a guerrilla resistance army organized and led by Filipinos who were more or less socialist, if not, communist, in orientation.

Other guerrilla units were led by American soldiers who stayed on after Bataan and Corregidor were surrendered to the Japanese.

Luis Taruc was its most famous leader. He led the HUKs against the Japanese in a popular war of resistance. After the Japanese war, Taruc ran and was elected to the Congress and if memory serves me right, he was expelled for anti-American rhetoric.

He stayed on to lead the HUKs and surrendered to Ramon Magsaysay in the '50s.

iii.                  And about the very famous President Mr. Magsaysay?

Ramon Magsaysay was the first non-lawyer of the country. He acquired fame as President Elpidio Quirino's secretary of national defense.

As Secretary of National Defense, Magsaysay led the armed forces in a successful fight against the HUKs (before the Maoists New People's Army took over the struggle).

The Americans gave all out support to Magsaysay and that is probably why he was called an American Boy.

Whatever be the truth of that appellation, Magsaysay was an honest public servant and the people loved him for it.

He died in a plane crash in the 3^rd year of his 4 year term as president.

iv.                  Also about the infamous dictatorship of Mr. Marcos?

Ferdinand Marcos was a man of many parts. He was a lawyer. A politician par excellence. A master manipulator of people. He choose people with ability to serve as his cabinet members and advisors. Many of them were ruined by their association with him.

Towards the end of his non-extendible 2^nd 4 year term as president, he called for a constitutional convention to amend the country's constitution. he said it was an American dominated fundamental law. he wanted one that was truly Filipino.

I ran and was elected as a delegate to the convention representing my province of Misamis Oriental in Mindanao. We were 320 elected delegates in all.

Soon after we began our work, Marcos started to manipulate the process of constitutional change to ensure that he and his family, his wife, Imelda, especially, would stay in power even after he is gone.

He doled out money, perks and other favors to the delegates who could be bought. Some of us fought him tooth and nail.

He declared martial law in September 1972 and got many of us in jail. (I write about this extensively in my book, Martial Law in the Philippines: My Story (2006), a copy of which I intend to send you anytime now.

When he called for presidential and vice presidential elections in 1986, we endorsed Cory Aquino as our candidate for the opposition. I was Aquino's daily companion – campaign manager, if you want to call it that – in that campaign. Marcos cheated us blind. We refused to concede. Instead Aquino with the support of the so-called civil society organized a national boycott campaign against Marcos and his crony companies.

Our struggle culminated in the now world famous People Power Revolution that toppled Marcos through massive peaceful demonstrations that drew nary a drop of blood in February 1986.

(Will be continued next week)

Comments:

Angle Naw said _

Thanks for the interview.  I came back from the Philippines in November when there was another failed military coup and Mani Pacquiao was lauded as a national hero.  Poverty in the Philippines is no less dismal than that in Burma.  Is that Marcos' legacy?  President G. Arroyo is attempting to change her American-style government to British model parliamentary system to hang onto power.  Would she be held accountable for all extra-judicial killings which happened under her administration? Just like the Burmese, the Filipinos need a regime change and a transition to radical democracy, wherein present elitism and bossism are supplanted by grassroots and radical democracy at all levels of governance.

Paul Kyaw said _

It is encouraging. I'd been to Manila a few years ago. Soon after I set foot on the tarmac of the Manila International Airport, I scanned around the area as the sense of assassination of Ninoy tightly gripped my heart. I knew that now I stood at the very ground where he was brutally and cowardly murdered by the power-hungry rulers. The only thing I realize is the sacrifice of Dr. Rizal brought Independence for the people of the Philippines and Ninoy the Human rights and democracy. They were the source of People's Power. It did happen in Philippines and won but not in Burma as the army sided the dictators. I can foretell that the poverty in Burma is so tense to explode by a tiny spark. We need more Ninoys & Nenes.

Your Comments here_ please do not use symbols "(:/\<>!|{]@~#$)"

Request: If you can kindly volunteer to translate BURMA DIGEST English articles into Burmese, please let us know burmadigest@tayzathuria.org.uk .

.

Last week's English article

• Political Personalities of the year 2006 for Burma

• Reporting from inside Burma

• Voting for Politician 2006 Burma

• People's views on their Politicians

• Categorizing Political Personalities

• Burma: The Quest for Ethical Tourism

• Not Going

• We need EITI in Burma

• Lullaby for a Refugee

• Oh, Happy Day!!!

• Various Democracies (Part 3)