Issue Date
2023
Abstract
Despite the considerable research on the anti-Marcos movement in the United States, only a few focused on the Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino (KDP), particularly its members who were exiles who immigrated from the Philippines before and during the early years of the martial law regime. This article adopts social movement theory and historical case study to examine the collected sources including interviews, memoirs, newspapers, government and organizational documents, and also books and articles relevant to the study. From these sources, I explore the early years of international work of Filipino exiles, the repression by the Marcos regime’s US-based Filipino agents, up to the KDP’s organizational splits and political decline from 1971 to 1986. The article shows that the social and political structures of the hostland were decisive and the primacy of national democracy in the conduct of transnational mobilizations. While the KDP initially took advantage of extensive resources and political opportunities to support the revolutionary struggle of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) in the homeland, these later on significantly decreased as domestic conditions in the United States shifted and were no longer favorable culminating in the decline of the KDP. Nevertheless, both the CPP’s national democratic revolution in the Philippines and the repression of the Marcos dictatorship were transnational in character. Moreover, these mobilizations of territorially separated Filipino exiles make them “transnational imagined communities”.
Source or Periodical Title
UP Los Baños Journal
Volume
21
Issue
3
Page
47-77
Document Type
Article
College
College of Arts and Sciences (CAS)
Language
English
Subject
Communist Party of the Philippines, Katipunan ng mga Demokratikong Pilipino, martial law, national democracy, transnationalism
Recommended Citation
Briones, Jervy C., "Revolution in exile: transnational mobilizations of Filipinos in the United States,1971-1986" (2023). Journal Article. 6009.
https://www.ukdr.uplb.edu.ph/journal-articles/6009