Philippine Activists in L.A. Already Planning a Party

The news coming out of Manila all day Sunday was confusing at best, but one group of Filipino-American activists in Los Angeles had already decided how to react. They were going to throw a party.

“We’re going to plan our victory celebration,” said Edwin Batongbacal, a coordinator of the Los Angeles chapter of the leftist Coalition Against the Marcos Dictatorship. “As soon as we know for sure that Marcos is gone.”

As he spoke, few in Los Angeles’ 200,000-member Philippine community were sure about anything going on in their homeland. But they did their best to find out, deluging international telephone operators with attempts to reach relatives and friends in Manila, calling each other with the latest rumors and attending an anti-Marcos rally at a downtown Methodist church.

Members of Batongbacal’s coalition had started the morning planning to hand out anti-Marcos petitions in Filipino-American strongholds in Carson, Wilmington and central Los Angeles. But the confusing reports from Manila quickly changed their plans.

By day’s end, they were manning home telephones, trying to reach anyone in Manila who could give them information. “A friend of mine talked to friends there 10 minutes ago,” Batongbacal said Sunday afternoon. “He said there is already a celebration in the streets.”

Batongbacal’s friend was one of the few lucky ones who managed to get through. Many others tried, only to be told that the lines were jammed.

“Some of our guys tried, but they couldn’t get through,” said Ludi Salazar, an official of the local chapter of the Movement for a Free Philippines.

Salazar said he spent Saturday night with members of Los Angeles’ Philippine Consulate, who had defected to the anti-Marcos opposition on Saturday. The consulate’s top official, Leovigildo Anolin and nine other consular officers signed a statement Saturday urging Marcos to to resign.

Anolin was expected to appear at an anti-Marcos rally at the Rosewood United Methodist Church on Vermont Avenue on Sunday, but activists there said he was concerned about his safety and stayed at his Cerritos home under FBI guard.

At the rally, more than 200 members of the Philippine community cheered and stomped their feet as Jesse Jackson urged Marcos to step down. Jackson said that Marcos “needs to be offered a plane, just as Duvalier was offered one,” a reference to ousted Haitian President Jean-Claude Duvalier, who fled his country earlier this month in a plane provided by the United States.

After Jackson’s speech, Filipino-Americans gathered on the church steps, echoing his appeal. “It would be a good thing if Marcos quits,” said Gene Morris, a Filipino businessman and retired Philippine army colonel. “We would relish him quitting if it would avoid bloodshed.”

But like a growing number of Los Angeles’ Filipinos, Melghor Padua, the former mayor of the town of San Juan, was convinced that the time for jubilation was already at hand. “Everyone here is high, but not on drugs,” he said.