Filipinos Here Weep, Sing, Hug

In a small plaza below the Philippine Consulate on Wilshire Boulevard on Tuesday, local Filipinos hugged and wept and cheered, paraded in a circle, waved flags, sang folk songs, tore a phone book into confetti and showered themselves with long-awaited jubilation.

As news spread that Philippine President Ferdinand E. Marcos had abandoned the presidential palace in Manila and fled for the safety of an overseas exile, his Filipino opponents in Los Angeles and San Francisco celebrated a day that many had dreamed of for years.

“I’m ecstatic, speechless, euphoric,” said Ernie Delfin, an anti-Marcos activist who writes for the Los Angeles-based Philippine American News. “We have been waiting. Our prayer has been answered. . . . It is re-liberation of our country from an unwanted ruler, without bloodshed. I am so proud of our country.”

Ed Alcaraz, an organizer of the noon rally outside the consulate offices, had taken three days off from his San Pedro shipyard job to help plan the event, which was originally called to demand Marcos’ resignation. Instead, it became a gleeful celebration of victory.

“This is our time, after 20 years, and we (have been) longing to have it,” Alcaraz said.

Supporters of newly installed Philippine President Corazon Aquino hung a large picture of their leader--a hastily framed campaign photo--in the 12th-floor consulate office.

Most of the consulate staff had signed a petition Saturday calling on Marcos to step down. The acting consul general, Leovigildo Anolin, who led that action, and Aquino’s supporters here pledged Tuesday that there would be no retribution toward those who refused to sign.

Improvised Yellow Flags

Close to 200 Filipinos joined Tuesday’s sidewalk celebration, parading with Philippine national flags and with improvised yellow flags made of sheets from the Yellow Pages--yellow is the symbolic color of the Aquino campaign.

They cheered loudly when Ted Padilla, a local Aquino campaign official, yelled, “People power!” through a bullhorn. And they sang “Ang Bayan Ko” (“My Country”), a popular song comparing the Philippines to a caged bird craving freedom. The song has been sung like a religious anthem at local anti-Marcos rallies in recent months.

Some wore yellow sweatshirts emblazoned with the slogan “Cory Aquino Is President.”

Nearer downtown, under a canopy where used clothes were being sold in the parking lot of a Filipino community center on Temple Street, Sister Carmen, a 74-year-old member of the Blue Army of Our Lady Fatima religious order, described how she had gone to bed Monday night praying that Marcos would resign.

“I prayed so hard. I said, ‘Lord, I want it now !’ ” the frail woman said, her eyes filling with tears and her voice rising. “And God answered my prayers.”

In San Francisco on Monday, Philippine Consulate officials also had called on Marcos to give up the presidency. On Tuesday, Marcos critics who in recent weeks had demonstrated outside the consulate wandered in and out of its offices. Yellow ribbons were strewn about the lobby, Aquino supporters draped themselves in yellow crepe paper and--as in Los Angeles--they shredded telephone Yellow Pages into confetti.

At a Tuesday afternoon consulate reception in San Francisco, Consul General Romeo A. Arguelles toasted the new Aquino government with the word “ mabuhay, “ a reference to long life and peace. Consular officers served white wine, orange juice and peanuts to a procession of 40 pro-Aquino and anti-Marcos Filipinos.

A Swift Decision

“I was surprised as to the swiftness of the decision,” Arguelles said. “I certainly was very much relieved that there was a peaceful transition without bloodshed.”

Arguelles said consular personnel removed Marcos’ picture from the office Tuesday morning when they heard of his resignation.

At the celebrations outside consular offices in both Los Angeles and San Francisco, organizers attempted to restrain lingering expressions of bitterness.

In Los Angeles, one pro-Aquino demonstrator tried to use a bullhorn to lead chants against Marcos, but others present took it away. In San Francisco, one person held aloft a sign urging the Aquino government to remove American military bases from the Philippines, but it was ripped out of his hands by another Aquino supporter.

Resolution of the bitter Aquino-Marcos struggle with, as yet, no massive bloodshed brought expressions of relief from varied segments of the Filipino-American community, even those who stood by Marcos to the end.

“We, the loyalists, feel very sad about his sudden departure,” said Carlos Manlapaz, a Lynwood dentist who is Southern California chairman of Concerned Filipino Americans of California, a pro-Marcos group. “(But) we are very proud of him. He sacrificed himself, his honor and his position to save bloodshed in the Philippines.”

Pete Fajardo, chairman of the Confederation of Philippine-U.S. Organizations, said the umbrella organization of Los Angeles-area Filipino-American groups “welcomed the news that the situation in the Philippines has been finally resolved without bloodshed.”

Other Filipino-Americans expressed hope that an Aquino presidency will reestablish stability and economic growth in their homeland.

Nick Lopez, 76, who said he had been a lawyer in the Philippines before leaving 16 years ago, talked about making plans to return and resume his practice.

Delfin, the newspaper columnist, who runs a Los Angeles auto sales and leasing business, predicted that stability under Aquino will touch off a boom in Philippine tourism and investment by Filipino-Americans and U.S. corporations.

“My wife and I are thinking of investing in beach property,” Delfin said. He is also talking with a business partner about establishing a fish cannery in the Philippines, he added.

“Now perhaps I can return to my country to start my life over again,” said Joel Guintu, a San Diego County resident who came to this country in 1971. Guintu charged that Marcos’ “greed and corruption” years ago had caused the failure of his Manila grocery store.

Sylvia Cuenco, a San Diego County travel agent, said Filipinos “are starting to call now” for information about flights to the islands.

In Orange County, Ramon A. Alcaraz, 70, a former commodore of the Philippine navy who has opposed Marcos, said he felt “the same feeling (as) when the American liberation forces arrived in the Philippines in 1945.”

“Then, like now, the people are so happy,” he said. “I don’t think you can describe the feeling in words.”

Since martial law was imposed in 1972, Alcaraz said, he has flown the red, blue, white and yellow Philippine flag upside down in front of his residence in Orange “to symbolize that our country was in crisis.” He planned a small ceremony Tuesday night to hoist the flag upright.

Times staff writers Dan Morain in San Francisco, David Reyes in Orange County and H.G. Reza in San Diego contributed to this story.