We're luckier we never fled on boat

"The feat of surviving is directly related to the capacity of the survivor." Claire Cameron

By Alex P. Vidal

LOS ANGELES, California -- WE remember during the 1986 presidential snap elections in the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos' Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) ran a blitzkrieg in the mass media that if the communists will win, the Filipinos would end up as the next "boat people" of Asia.

Marcos' propaganda machine wanted to paint rival presidential candidate Corazon Cojuangco Aquino's UNIDO opposition party as left-leaning or "communist."

Many voters, out of ignorance and fear combined, swallowed the smear campaign hook, line and sinker.

The scuttlebutt was that Tita Cory and her vice presidential candidate Doy Laurel were backed by the communists that threatened to take over the reigns of the government if the pair defeat the tandem of reelectionist Marcos and vice presidential candidate Arturo Tolentino.  

VIOLENCE

Footage of "boat people" and other macabre violence that allegedly took place when the communists overran Vietnam in the 1970s were played up repeatedly on national TV.

Marcos and Tolentino "won" but were toppled by the People Power in the EDSA Revolution months later. 

The pre-election paranoia proved to be a hoax.

Filipinos did not become "boat people" when Tita Cory and Vice President Laurel ascended into power in a revolutionary government. 

The rest is history.

We have experienced so many catastrophes in the past, political, economic, etcetera, but we never left the Philippines on board dilapidated boats and seek refuge in other neighboring Southeast Asian countries,

In every crisis, Filipinos became stronger and united. We always survived.

We recalled the "boat people" episode when hundreds of immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar recently landed in Indonesia and the Philippines after floating for months on overcrowded boats.

Many of them were suffering from dehydration and they were weak and starving, it was reported.

MIGRANTS

It was believed that as many as 8,000 migrants may be adrift in the Andaman Sea and Straits of Malacca, living in conditions so squalid that the United Nations has warned of an epidemic of “floating coffins.” 

Some governments in the region have reportedly turned away migrants.

The Los Angeles Times reported that "many of the migrants are fleeing desperate poverty in Bangladesh, while others are ethnic Rohingyas, a persecuted Muslim minority from Myanmar’s western Rakhine state who have been violently attacked, denied citizenship and confined to squalid ghettos at home."

It was in the 1970s and 1980s when the immigration of thousands of people from Southeast Asia impacted American-Vietnamese relations and gave rise to new communities of Vietnamese, Cambodian, Laotian, and Hmong Americans in the United States. 

"Known as boat people for escaping Southeast Asia by sea, the exodus of hundreds of thousands of Southeast Asians (predominantly Vietnamese) generated a political and humanitarian firestorm for the international community, the United States, and Vietnam," reported the New American Nation.

WAVE

It added that the first wave in 1975 included 140,000 South Vietnamese, mostly political leaders, army officers, and skilled professionals escaping the communist takeover. 

"Fewer than a thousand Vietnamese successfully fled the nation. Those who managed to escape pirates, typhoons, and starvation sought safety and a new life in refugee camps in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong," added the New American Nation. 

For many, these countries became permanent homes, while for others they were only waystations to acquiring political asylum in other nations, including the United States.