Jose ‘Ka Pepe’ Diokno, quintessential nationalist
By Satur C. Ocampo
At Ground Level |
Tomorrow marks the 90th birthday of Jose “Ka Pepe” Diokno: nationalist, human rights defender, progressive intellectual, and more.
Had he lived as long as his colleague, Lorenzo “Ka Tanny” Tanada who, at 91, stood up from his wheelchair at the gallery to hail the Senate voting in 1991 that ended the US military bases’ presence in the Philippines one need not wonder how Ka Pepe would feel today.
Most probably he would be dismayed, yet undaunted, that American troops have returned and remained since 2002. He would vigorously oppose the bilateral talks to be held in March on the plan to expand US military-presence-cum-intervention in our national affairs.
Claro M. Recto, Jose P. Laurel, Tanada, and Diokno were the cogent, consistent, and courageous voices of nationalism in the Senate from the 1950s right up to 1972 when Congress was shut down by Ferdinand Marcos. After the deaths of Recto and Laurel in the 1960s, Tanada and Diokno forged on, alongside the rejuvenated progressive mass movement, to boot out the military bases as symbols of US hegemony..... MORE
Source: Bulatlat.com
URL: http://bulatlat.com/main/2012/03/01/jose-ka-pepe-diokno-quintessential-nationalist/
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