The Coalition Against the Marcos Dictatorship was a North America-based antiimperialist organization [1] that was at the center of the international movement opposing the dictatorship of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos from the 1970s.
CAMD changed its name to Committee to Advance the Movement for Democracy and Independence (CAMDI) [1] in February 1986, after the People Power Revolution toppled the corrupt and brutal Marcos regime.
Following the proclamation of martial law in the Philippines, the Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino (KDP) was established in July 1973 by young activists and students in Santa Cruz, California. It had a dual program of supporting the national democratic revolution in the Philippines and fighting for social justice in the United States. [2] Its founders wrote:
“[In] the struggle for national democracy in the Philippines,” the KDP must address the “exploitation and racist oppression of U.S. monopoly-capitalism” in America and in the Philippines. [3]
In 1974, the KDP was among various anti-martial law groups to petition the U.S. Congress to stop support for Marcos. The campaign was followed by the first national anti-martial law conference in Chicago. The conference established the National Coordinating Committee of the Anti-Martial Movement, which later became the Anti-Martial Law Coalition (AMLC) in New York. [1]
The AMLC set up its task force in Washington, D.C. to act as a watchdog on congressional action and to help coordinate mass pressure campaigns. It also developed policy positions and conducted patient work with congressional personnel to help sway options. [2]
Local formations of AMLC and anti-martial law alliances were developed in various cities to allow the participation of individuals who were not members of existing anti-martial law groups, such as the Movement for a Free Philippines (MFP) and the Friends of the Filipino People (FFP). [2]
KDP leader and AMLC organizer Rene Ciria-Cruz wrote:
AMLC launched well-coordinated campaigns, educating the community and non-Pilipino sectors on the plight of political prisoners, the U.S. motivation in supporting the regime, Marcos' maneuvers for legitimacy and more... These campaigns took the form of petition drives, demonstrators, Christmas caroling, speaking tours of exiled or deported oppositionists, and fund-raisers for the workers movement. The AMLC also sent human rights delegations to the Philippines, and during the rigged 1978 election, staged occupations of Philippine consulated in five cities. [4]
In 1981, after the formal proclamation of martial law was lifted, AMLC became the Coalition Against the Marcos Dictatorship (CAMD), and had identifiably become an anti-imperialist organization.
In 1983, CAMD merged with the Philippine Support Network to form CAMD/PSN, following a rift between former members of the Friends of the Filipino People (FFP).
Regularized activities like annual protests on the anniversary of martial law, Christmas caroling, community forums, annual conferences, and mass distribution of the Taliba newsletter kept the controversy over martial law alive in the Filipino community and general public during periods of low political activity (“ebbs”) around the Philippines. All KDP activists, regardless of their principal area of work (e.g., anti-racist, cultural, national staff, etc.), participated in some aspect of the martial law work. The consistency of the activities paid off when developments began to heighten in the Philippines during the early 1980s, accelerated by the assassination of Senator Benign0 (Ninoy) Aquino in August 1983, and erupting into the “people’s revolution” three years later. [1]
Known leaders included Maxi Villones, Odette Taverna, Christine Araneta, Greg Santillan, Ia Rodriguez, Armin Alforque, Dean Alegado, Fely Villasin, Liz Fenkell, Becky Villones, Lulu Ross, Pierre Thiry.
In 1986, the CAMD and the KDP joined with the MFP and the organizationally looser Ninoy Aquino Movement, as well as spontaneous local formations such as the Friends of Cory Aquino in a campaign to mobilize political and financial support for the presidential candidacy of Corazon Aquino, following her husband's assassination. [2]
CAMD/PSN was again re-named as the Committee to Advance the Movement for Democracy and Independence (CAMDI). [1]
In 2016, former members of CAMD/PSN joined international gathering [5] and protest rallies [6] against the planned burial of Ferdinand Marcos at Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) in Fort Bonifacio, Metro Manila, Philippines.
Benigno "Ninoy" SimeonAquino Jr., was a Filipino politician who served as a senator of the Philippines (1967–1972) and governor of the province of Tarlac. Aquino was the husband of Corazon Aquino, who became the 11th president of the Philippines after his assassination, and father of Benigno Aquino III, who became the 15th president of the Philippines. Aquino, together with Gerardo Roxas and Jovito Salonga, helped form the leadership of the opposition towards then President Ferdinand Marcos. He was the significant leader who together with the intellectual leader Sen. Jose W. Diokno led the overall opposition.
The National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) is a coalition of revolutionary social and economic justice organizations, agricultural unions, trade unions, indigenous rights groups, leftist political parties, and other related groups in the Philippines. It belongs to the much broader National Democracy Movement and the communist rebellion in the Philippines.
The United Nationalist Democratic Organization (UNIDO) was the main political multi-party electoral alliance of the traditional political opposition during the turbulent last years of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos in the mid-1980s. It was formed in January 1980, and was originally known as the United Democratic Opposition from 1980 to 1982. It was initially a union of eight major and minor political parties and organizations with the main aim to oust President Marcos through a legal political process. In April 1982, the coalition received its present name, and increased its members to twelve parties. Shortly after the assassination of popular opposition senator Benigno Aquino Jr., the party was led by Senator Salvador Laurel of Batangas.
Lorenzo Martinez "Ka Tanny" Tañada Sr. was a Filipino statesman, lawyer, human and civil rights defender, and national athlete. He is often referred to as the "Grand Old Man of Philippine Politics."
Lakas ng Bayan, abbreviated as Laban, was an electoral alliance, later a political party, in the Philippines formed by Senator Ninoy Aquino for the 1978 Interim Batasang Pambansa regional elections. The party had 21 candidates for the Metro Manila area, all of whom lost, including Ninoy. The party's acronym (Laban) is a Filipino word meaning "fight".
Francisco "Soc" Aldana Rodrigo was a Filipino playwright, lawyer, broadcaster, and a Senator of the Philippines from 1955 to 1967.
The People Power Monument is an 18-meter-high (59 ft) monument built to commemorate the events of the 1986 People Power Revolution. The monument is located on the corner of Epifanio de los Santos Avenue and White Plains Avenue in Barangay Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City, Philippines. It was made by Eduardo Castrillo in 1993. It is about 0.90 kilometers (0.56 mi) from the EDSA Shrine, another monument built to commemorate the event.
Mamintal Abdul Jabbar Tamano was a Filipino statesman and a former Senator of the Philippines.
Silme Domingo was a Filipino American labor activist. With Gene Viernes, he was murdered in Seattle on June 1, 1981, while attempting to reform the Local 37 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).
The burial of Ferdinand Marcos, a former Philippine President who ruled as a dictator for 21 years, took place on November 18, 2016, at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Andres Bonifacio, Taguig, Metro Manila, Philippines. Marcos had been elected the 10th President of the Philippines in 1965, but declared Martial Law in 1972 before his final constitutionally allowed term was over, holding on to power until his overthrow by the People Power Revolution in 1986.
Student activism in the Philippines from 1965 to 1972 played a key role in the events which led to Ferdinand Marcos' declaration of Martial Law in 1972, and the Marcos regime's eventual downfall during the events of the People Power Revolution of 1986.
Religious sector opposition against the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos included leaders and workers belonging to different beliefs and denominations.
During the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, Filipino workers in the labor industry experienced the effects of government corruption, crony capitalism, and cheap labor for foreign transnational industries, One of the objectives of Martial Law was to cheapen labor costs, in order to attract transnational corporations to export labor to the Philippines. Marcos signed many presidential decrees beneficial only to his associates, while allowing for the forced relocation of indigenous peoples, decreasing workers' wages, and murders of labor activists. Minimum wage was a fixed PHP8.00 per day. Many workers were unemployed or underemployed. It was also during the Marcos presidency when the practice of contractualization began, enabling managements to avoid giving regular, permanent status to employees after six months of work. Strikes were banned and the government controlled trade unions, leaving workers without effective protection against employers who had unfair labor practices and regulations.
Katipunan ng Demokratikong Pilipino (KDP) is a Philippine far-right neo-nationalist political party founded on August 31, 2018. It was formed by supporters of 16th President Rodrigo Duterte, including some officers affiliated with the Citizen National Guard, a nationalist, anti-communist political advocacy group, including party chairman and former Department of Education undersecretary Butch Valdes, President Ramon Pedrosa, Executive Vice President Princess Lady Ann Indanan-Sahidulla, and Dr. Ricardo Fulgencio IV. The party had fielded former Lieutenant General Antonio Parlade Jr. in the 2022 presidential election, which he was disallowed to run by COMELEC.
Alexander "Alex" Orcullo was a Filipino journalist, community leader, and activist known for speaking against the abuses of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, and for being a seminal figure of the protest movement against the Marcos dictatorship in Mindanao, Philippines.
Gaston Zavalla Ortigas, also known as Gasty was a Filipino professor, freedom fighter, agrarian reformer, entrepreneur, and peace advocate best known for his opposition to the Martial Law dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, and for his later pursuit of a peace process between the post-dictatorship Philippine Government and various antidictatorship movements that did not give up their arms after Marcos was deposed in February 1986. He was the dean of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM).
Antonio Gumba Parlade Jr. is a former Filipino military officer who retired as commander of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Southern Luzon Command in 2021, and was best known for his combative terms as spokesman for the Philippine Army before he was removed from that post in 2011, and later, as spokesperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC).
In the Philippines during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, groups and individuals which opposed the regime without subscribing to leftist ideology were usually labeled with the terms "middle force," "third force," the "mainstream opposition," or more rarely, as the "conservative opposition." Mostly consisting of middle class and upper class groups which had been apolitical when Marcos first declared martial law, the most prominent examples of oppositionists in this category include religious groups, business sector groups, professional groups, social democrats, academics, journalists, and artists. Politicians from the traditional opposition are also sometimes counted in this category, although the terms are traditionally associated with ground level opposition, rather than political opposition per se.
The different forms and trends of protest music against the Marcos dictatorship mostly first became prominent during the period now known as the First Quarter Storm, and continued until Ferdinand Marcos was deposed during the 1986 People Power revolution; some of the trends continued beyond this period either in commemoration of the struggle against the Marcos dictatorship, or in opposition to the political return of the Marcos family to a prominent place in Philippine politics.
Movement for a Free Philippines was a Washington, D.C.-based organization established in 1973 by exiled Filipinos in opposition to the authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)