Volume 33, Number 17 · November 6, 1986
Saint Cory and the Yellow Revolution
By Ian Buruma
WORKS DISCUSSED IN THIS ESSAY
The Snap Revolution
by James Fenton
Granta, 256 pp., $6.95
People Power: An Eyewitness History
edited by Monina Allarey Mercado
The James B. Reuter, S.J., Foundation (Manila), 320 pp., $29.95
Bayon Ko!
Veritas (Manila), 191 pp., $32.50
Crisis in the Philippines: The Marcos Era and Beyond
edited by John Bresnan
Princeton University Press, 284 pp., $10.95 (paper)
The most remarkable thing about Lorenzo Tanada's eighty-eighth birthday party on August 10 was the cake. Tanada, a former senator, has had a long and consistent career as a 'nationalist.' Although Filipino wags love to tell you that Tani, as the senator is known to his friends, hardly knows the difference between Groucho and Karl, his brand of nationalism has been defined over the years by such Marxist historians as Renato Constantino, whose books fill long shelves in Manila bookstores. Tani's nationalism is a struggle for liberation from, among other egregious enemies, the CIA, the IMF, multinationals, the US military bases, in short, American imperialism. As Constantino pointed out in a speech during Tani's birthday party, the senator was born in the same year that Commodore Dewey sank the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. He is still battling what Constantino calls 'the forces responsible for our lack of independence.'
Review, 7519 words
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