Focus on Election : Filipinos in U.S.: Both Sides Lobby

A manacled brown fist dangling a broken chain is raised triumphantly, supported by black and white hands, in a wall poster at the Philippine Resource Center, a left-leaning Berkeley information office directed by Marxist scholar Joel Rocamora.

“Oppose the U.S.-backed Marcos Dictatorship--Support the Filipino People’s Struggle for Justice, Freedom and Democracy,” declares the poster, one of many that mark this as a place where 1960s-style radical activism has not died.

Across San Francisco Bay, at the offices of the Philippine News in South San Francisco, publisher Alex Esclamado--a fierce anti-Communist who is so pro-American that he talks in favor of ultimate U.S. statehood for the Philippines--also wages battle against Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos.

‘Love Your Country?’

“Do you still love your native country, the Philippines?” asks an advertisement placed by Esclamado in his own newspaper to urge Filipino-Americans to visit their homeland and serve as poll watchers in a presidential election scheduled for Feb. 7. “Within five years, if Marcos or his political machine continues to rule . . . the Communists will take over the Philippines! Democracy has its last chance to be resurrected. . . . Join the Filipino Freedom Watch.”

Against a background of bitter electoral politics, street demonstrations and jungle fighting in the Philippines, Filipinos in the United States are waging an escalating battle of slogans, demonstrations, publishing, political organizing, fund-raising and lobbying geared to the election and beyond.

Rocamora and Esclamado stand at the left and the right within the range of opposition Filipino views in the United States. They--and the entire spectrum of opposition activists between them--are united in fighting for a cutoff of U.S. support for Marcos.

Marcos Backers Active

Marcos supporters have launched a nationwide lobbying group, headquartered in San Francisco, called Friends of Marcos in America. The president’s critics, however, have generally dominated Filipino political activism in the United States, according to people on all sides of the struggle.

“We have had bad public relations over here,” said Larry V. Zabala Jr., information attache at the Philippine consulate in Los Angeles. “Our supporters are not very active. . . . It’s in this portion of the battle that we are losing. . . . These opposition groups are more dedicated.”

Activists on all sides acknowledge that they comprise only a small percentage of the roughly 1 million ethnic Filipinos in the United States, who generally are much more concerned with their work, families and personal lives than they are with the politics of their motherland. Although the 1980 U.S. Census counted 358,378 Filipinos in California, making them the largest Asian ethnic minority in the state, political rallies typically turn out no more than a few hundred people.

Nonetheless, the activists believe that they can influence the destiny of their homeland through direct lobbying in Washington and by winning increased support from Filipino-Americans and the general public. Opposition forces believe that they have already helped soften U.S. support for Marcos and have spotlighted the importance of a fair ballot count.

Some believe that the greatest Filipino political effect in the United States will come in future years, after more immigrants have become U.S. citizens, especially if the crisis in the former American colony turns into a full-scale civil war.

Rocamora is part of a leftist coalition that has rejected the Feb. 7 election as an exercise designed to pave the way for increased U.S. aid to Marcos. These groups are already promoting an anti-interventionist movement in the United States reminiscent of the movement against the Vietnam War.

“The Philippine issue, I’m confident, is going to become a bigger issue in American foreign policy than Central America or South Africa has been,” Rocamora said. “I think it would be a real tragedy for both the United States and the Philippines if a Vietnam-type intervention happens. . . . In general terms, we hope to reach both the Filipino community and the broader American public. If we’re going to stop direct U.S. military intervention, it’s only the American people who can do it.”

Backing Aquino

Most anti-Marcos groups, despite divergent long-range goals, are backing the presidential candidacy of Corazon Aquino, widow of the assassinated leader Benigno (Ninoy) Aquino.

“The common thing we have to do now is dismantle the dictatorship,” said Tessie Aquino Oreta, Ninoy Aquino’s sister, who maintains residences in both Manila and the San Francisco area and has become a spokeswoman for the U.S.-based Ninoy Aquino Movement.

Aquino’s 1983 murder at Manila airport upon his return from three years of exile in the United States--a killing that a Philippine fact-finding board determined was at the hands of Philippine military men--provides the main inspiration for unity around the presidential candidacy of his widow. Last month, a Philippine court handed down not-guilty verdicts for all 26 defendants tried in the case, provoking anger that has provided additional energy for the opposition movement.

A song by Los Angeles-area Marcos critics Danny Martinez and Danny Lamila, featured at a rally that drew about 130 Corazon Aquino supporters to a church assembly hall in Los Angeles last month, captured the emotions inspired by Aquino’s martyrdom:

Listen to the story of Ninoy Aquino,

First among the legends of his land. . . .

He would rather suffer than be made a slave.

He would rather die than be afraid. . . .

Mother Filipinas hear his plea,

Vibrant through your mountains and your seas:

Freedom’s not a gift that one can give.

Freedom’s a conviction we must live.

Yet many of those supporting Corazon Aquino’s candidacy do so with a sort of last-chance desperation, lacking conviction that anything short of armed force can oust Marcos and his network of supporters, built up during his 20 years in power.

“I cannot even fantasize Marcos giving a fair and honest election,” Oreta said. “I think after the Feb. 7 election there will be no more moderates. I’m afraid it will be the extinction of the moderate opposition.”

The belief that victory for Marcos in a fraudulent election would strengthen the left in the Philippines is one reason some leftists in the United States are backing Corazon Aquino’s candidacy.

“If the opposition is united, Marcos will dig his own grave, whatever he does with the election,” said Greg Santillan, co-coordinator of the Los Angeles chapter of the left-leaning Coalition Against the Marcos Dictatorship. “If he cheats, it will be a Pyrrhic victory, because he will be more unstable. If he calls off the election, there will be more unrest. Either way, it will advance the political consciousness of the people.”

Marcos backers argue that support for the incumbent president is the best guarantee against a Communist takeover of the Philippines and that a Marcos victory should be seen as an expression of the Philippine people’s will.

‘Optimistic’ Goal

Support for Corazon Aquino’s campaign includes a drive by the Ninoy Aquino Movement to raise $4.5 million in the United States and Canada to subsidize poll watching--a figure that Oreta, the drive’s coordinator, described as “very optimistic.” The “adopt-a-precinct” effort aims to pay expenses for 10 observers at each of the 90,000 polling places in the country.

Another U.S.-based group, the Movement for a Free Philippines, is also raising funds to support Aquino.

Friends of Marcos in America, organized last month, is raising money to boost Marcos. “It’s more of a token rather than anything, but the main thing is to show that he is not left alone,” said Rolando L. Atiga, a Glendora physician and a Southern California leader of the group.

Bases of support for Marcos include some of the regional organizations that are popular among Filipino-Americans, especially those that represent parts of Marcos’ home region in the northern part of the country.

Leonilo Malabed, a San Francisco physician and national coordinator of Friends of Marcos in America, is past president of a hometown organization of people from the Batac area of Marcos’ home province.

‘You Are a Traitor’

“It is an unwritten law that if you are from Batac, you are a traitor of the first degree if you are not a Marcos man,” Malabed said.

In Los Angeles, more than 200 regional organizations and various other Filipino civic groups are loosely united in the Confederation of Philippine-U.S. Organizations, founded in 1979 with the assistance of Consul Gen. Armando Fernandez.

Promotion of good relations with these organizations has been a key goal of the Los Angeles consulate, Zabala said.

Leaders of the confederation, while acknowledging its close ties to the consulate, said it focuses on the welfare of Filipinos in the United States and does not seek either to promote or oppose Marcos. Its board includes critics as well as supporters of Marcos. The group has, however, sponsored trips to the Philippines on which its members are treated as guests of honor by the government.

Filipino-American newspapers, published in English, constitute a major battleground. Malabed, in addition to his other activities, is publisher of a Sacramento-based newspaper, the Filipino American, which claims a circulation of 10,000 and is generally considered the leading pro-Marcos publication in California.

‘Sole Obsession’

“The importance of this newspaper is to balance out the other Filipino papers that are antagonistic or terroristic, or very anti-Marcos,” Malabed said. “We have a paper here in the Bay Area--the Philippine News--whose sole obsession is to bring down President Marcos.”

The weekly Philippine News claims a nationwide circulation of 70,000 and is generally recognized as the largest Filipino-American newspaper in the United States. Publisher Esclamado, who is also a director of the Ninoy Aquino Movement, said he believes that “the ideal solution to the problem of restoring democracy in the Philippines is through peaceful means, through elections.

“But we also know that Mr. Marcos is not willing to relinquish power,” he said. “If he cheats, then the last peaceful means to restore democracy shall have been used, and the democratic opposition will be searching for a more forceful alternative--which could be bloody--to terminate the Marcos regime.”

Esclamado, in a view not entirely shared by others in the Ninoy Aquino Movement, said he opposes any coalition with the communist-led guerrillas of the New People’s Army but would look instead to the Philippine military as a possible source of action to oust Marcos.

“In that military establishment there are professional soldiers who are equally frustrated and disillusioned by the Marcos regime, who can possibly supply the armed force needed to topple him down,” Esclamado said.

Weapons Smuggling

The prospect of growing political violence appears partly responsible for increased smuggling of weapons to the Philippines from the United States, according to U.S. officials.

The most dramatic evidence of gun smuggling has come from the U.S. Customs Service in San Francisco. Six criminal prosecutions were filed based on weapons seized last year, and more cases are under investigation, according to Thomas A. McDermott, an assistant special customs agent in San Francisco.

Those arrested included Douglas Lu Ym, a leading figure in the Philippine coconut industry, who had an assault rifle, a military-style laser scope and a dismantled hand gun, and Adam Jimenez Jr., the son of a Philippine Army colonel, who had Uzi submachine guns, shotguns, pistols and gun parts, McDermott said.

McDermott said it appears that some gun smugglers are wealthy individuals or people with ties to the government or the military and that others are seeking to turn a profit importing illegal firearms.

Some non-leftist opponents of Marcos--including Steve Psinakis, a Greek-American resident of San Francisco who is married to a Filipino woman and is a close associate of Esclamado--have been accused by the Philippine government of involvement in a series of bomb and arson attacks that peaked in 1980. There has been speculation that some weapons shipments from the United States may go to members of the non-Marxist opposition still planning such actions.

Involvement Denied

Psinakis denied personal involvement in violent opposition activities but acknowledged knowing people who believe that force must be used to destabilize Marcos if fair elections are not held Feb. 7.

Psinakis is the type of person that the creator of the raised-fist poster at the Philippine Resource Center must have had in mind when drawing non-Filipino hands supporting the triumphantly raised brown fist.

Married to Presentacion Lopez, whose prominent family later clashed bitterly with Marcos, Psinakis masterminded the 1977 escape from a Philippine prison of his brother-in-law, Eugenio Lopez Jr., who had been publisher of a leading anti-Marcos newspaper.

Since then Psinakis has plied Washington officials with information embarrassing to Marcos, especially in regard to Aquino’s assassination and in alleging that the Marcos family and its supporters have transferred massive wealth to private U.S. holdings.

“I listen, learn and understand,” Psinakis said, “and in general try to convey this to my government, to explain that if we do not change our policy, there will be bloodshed.”