“Militant Music,
Powerful Language and Atomic Bombs:
Constitutional Change in the Philippines”
Asian Studies Program, UHM
At the tipping point between the
Marcos dictatorship and the Aquino presidency, the Anti-Bases Movement and the
Women’s Movement were well-positioned to rid the Philippines of nuclear weapons. Yet
it was not apparent to leaders of the Communist Party of the Philippines or
to officials in the administration of U.S. President Reagan. From protest
songs, the presentation links the notions of kalayaan (“freedom”) and isang malayang patakarang panlabas (“independent foreign policy”) with phrasing
in the new constitution designed to protect the lives and health of Filipinos
from U.S.
nuclear weapons. Replete with policy and procedural traps, that document would
defeat the pro-U.S. President and her allies in their efforts to keep foreign
military bases in the Philippines
after 1991. Earlier, the Nuclear-Free Philippines Coalition had accumulated
considerable political and cultural capital. In the end, Filipinos in the
Anti-Bases Movement raised the bar for the Nuclear Freeze Movement globally.
This presentation explains why—on the basis of song lyrics, newspaper reports,
public opinion polls, government documents, memoirs, interviews and U.S.
Embassy cablegrams.
