Orange County Businessman in Return of Exiles

“I will kiss the ground,” said Ramon Alcazar, an Orange County businessman who was met Sunday at Manila International Airport by family, friends and photographers. “Where is the nearest ground?”

Alcazar led a group of 11 Los Angeles-area Filipinos back to their homeland and new government. Their flight from Los Angeles was measured in hours, but the return had taken years.

Their exile ended, they made a commitment to work for the government of President Corazon Aquino, even at the cost of the livelihoods they had built in California.

Alcazar, 70, a World War II torpedo boat captain and Philippine navy chief of staff, was jailed briefly when President Ferdinand E. Marcos declared martial law in 1972. He had been sacked from his navy post by Marcos in 1966. He described himself as the ousted president’s “first victim” in a campaign to fill the top ranks of the military with personal favorites.

Want to Do Their Part

Alcazar has a real estate business in the city of Orange.

Another member of the group, Manuel Leelin of Cerritos, said, “We wanted to come here to do our part to help this new democracy . . . including bringing in capital to prop up the economy.”

Leelin is owner of the Goldie Locks chain of bakeries, of which five are in Los Angeles. He said that he has a contract to produce buns for the McDonald’s restaurants here. Leelin, who was active in the opposition here, also was jailed under martial law before moving to California.

A third member of the group was Raul Daza, an attorney and exile opposition figure, who had initially returned to Manila last summer.

The group was met at the airport by representatives of Juan Ponce Enrile, Aquino’s defense minister, and the Philippine navy sent an escort for Alcazar.

The traditional Philippine welcome of sampaguita leis, made of a sweet-smelling flower, was presented to the returnees, who wore yellow ribbons signifying their allegiance to Aquino. Alcazar’s wife, Concepcion, was in the welcoming party.

Both Alcazar and Leelin have American passports and had returned briefly before, Alcazar to attend a funeral in 1984.

“I can’t describe how it feels to be home,” said Alcazar, looking crisp in a navy blue blazer. “At Bataan and Corregidor we fought for our freedom, which was taken away by Mr. Marcos. Now, we have our freedom back.

“My purpose is to lead this group of intellectuals and businessmen back home. We had a brain drain under Marcos. This is the reverse of the brain drain.”

He asked the Filipino people to pray for Marcos “so that he can see the light of contrition.”

Wants Government Job

Alcazar said that he will probably eventually return to California to live, but “if they ask me to help here, I’m going to help.”

Daza said that he would like a government job here, possibly in human rights enforcement. “This is part of my personal trauma,” he said.

He said he met Alcazar when they joined the expatriate community in Los Angeles in 1973. He said that he, Alcazar and Leelin worked together to help the late Benigno S. Aquino Jr. during his exile in the United States.

Benigno Aquino, husband of the new president, was assassinated on his return here in 1983.

“We even adopted cover names to use over the telephone,” Daza said. “Alcazar was Marcelo; my code name was Lucas.”

Outside the terminal, a crowd of several thousand had gathered to meet another returnee on the flight, Paul Aquino, the president’s brother, who had been in Washington.

‘Hiding and Hiding’

An estimated 1 million Filipinos and Americans of Philippine origin live in the United States. The number of visas granted to Filipinos by the U.S. consulate here in Manila is greater than any other country except Mexico. Uncounted in the U.S. population are what the Filipinos call T.N.T.s, initials from the Tagalog language for the words tago ng tago, “hiding and hiding.”

The expression is used to describe the thousands of Filipinos who have entered the country illegally or who have overstayed their visas.

Leaders in the U.S.-based Philippine exile movement, the Movement for a Free Philippines, claim that many of these hidden Filipinos are actually political refugees from the Marcos regime.

After the nearly bloodless rebellion that pushed Marcos from power into exile in Hawaii, international flights from the United States to Manila International Airport have been full of these undeclared exiles as well as well-known activists such as Alcaraz and his group.

Perhaps the most important arrival so far is Raul S. Manglapus, 67, president of the Movement for a Free Philippines and a former opposition leader in Manila.

Fled to Avoid Arrest

After President Marcos ordered martial law in the Philippines in 1972, Manglapus fled to avoid arrest. When he finally came back Thursday to a tearful welcome, Manglapus announced he had been gone “13 years, five months and seven days.”

Only a few days before, he had been standing in the snow in front of the White House in Washington protesting Marcos’ claim of victory in presidential elections here. If he had attempted to return home then, he almost certainly would have been arrested.

Thursday, he was whisked through the immigration counters and immediately given an audience with President Corazon Aquino, a longtime friend.

The Philippines has changed much in his years of exile. Manglapus’ native Makati area had sprouted dozens of modern high-rises and shopping centers.

“I did not recognize the buildings but I still recognized the people and I am proud to be one of them,” he said. He described Aquino as the “new goddess in the pantheon of democracy.” He went to a friend’s home and had his first Philippine mango in 13 years.

“Now I have had a mango and at last I am home,” he said.

Back to Politics

But for Manglapus and several other returnees, it wasn’t long before the euphoria of their reunion subsided, and they began in earnest to practice what had caused their exile--politics.

For his part, Manglapus, a former colleague of Marcos in the now-defunct Philippine senate, wanted to make it clear that he supported the revolution that had taken place in the Philippines. He was concerned that he might be criticized for not having been here for the actual takeover.

“People have to be reminded that the exile movement had a real role in the revolution,” he said. “We were not here, but we carried the torch.”

And while he did not exactly retract his description of Aquino as a “new goddess,” he did say that he was not sure she was the right person for the presidency.

“Cory may be viewed in two ways,” he said. “One is only as a transition president who will be content with one term and pave the way for others. Or she can be viewed as someone who will grow into the office.”