* Ramon Mitra; Philippine Politician, Marcos Foe

Ramon Mitra, 72, a former Philippine House speaker who gained prominence as a freedom fighter jailed by President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The son of a penal colony superintendent and a poor woman who died before he was a year old, Mitra was reared in poverty by a grandmother and worked his way through school. He became a journalist before entering law school at San Beda College. Mitra entered the diplomatic service in 1957, and was posted in Washington and at the United Nations before serving in government in the Philippines, first as a member of the House of Representatives in the 1960s and later in the Senate. Mitra survived a grenade attack at a political rally of the Liberal Party on Aug. 21, 1971, that nearly wiped out his party’s senatorial slate, which was running against Marcos’ Nacionalista Party. Marcos blamed Communists for the attack, which led to a crackdown on leftists, but opposition leaders believed Marcos in fact masterminded it. A year later Marcos declared martial law and jailed political opponents, including Mitra and the chief opposition leader, then-Sen. Benigno S. Aquino Jr. To show his defiance of Marcos, Mitra grew a beard and vowed not to shave it until Marcos was overthrown. Mitra returned to politics in 1984 as a member of the opposition in the Marcos-dominated parliament. When Marcos was ousted in the 1986 “people power” revolt, Mitra was appointed by President Corazon Aquino, Benigno Aquino’s widow, as agriculture secretary. Mitra lost his own bid for president in 1992 in a seven-way race to Fidel V. Ramos. Six years later, Mitra supported Joseph Estrada, who was elected president and then appointed Mitra president of the state-owned Philippine National Oil Corp. On Monday in Manila of liver cancer.