Roperos: Magsaysay’s legacy

AS I write this, Balamban, my home town, is on its second day of commemorating the anniversary of the death of president Ramon Magsaysay (RM) on Mt. Manunggal. He somehow made the place famous and gave my hometown a tourist site that owed its historical worth on the accomplishment of a former president.

RM altered many political traditions. He changed the profile of our elitist politics into a populist one.

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Until Magsaysay emerged from the able handling of American intelligence advisers, he was just a political “aide” of then president Elpidio Quirino. At that time, Philippine communism epitomized by the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Huk-balahap) or Huks led by a skilled guerilla fighter Luis Taruc was gaining ground. The Huks had established a foothold among peasants in Central Luzon, setting there the core of communism.

This may have alarmed the Americans, for it became known then that the US established an intelligence network in the Philippines and found a fine weapon in RM, whose ways fitted exactly the requirements of an American propaganda instrument in the Philippines. And so for the first time, Filipino peasants found a hero in Magsaysay. He was presidential candidate who acted like the average country peasant, jumping across ditches while campaigning in a barrio.

While before, presidential candidates stayed in cities and big towns to campaign, RM went on a house-to-house, shaking the hands of the average Filipino, not caring how dirty or gnarled their hands were. He had his hair cut under mango trees while sitting on a coconut husk, and when it was time for lunch, he sat with the barrio folk to eat with bare hands, a spectacle never before witnessed by our people.

It was Magsaysay’s popularity and simplicity that eventually broke the back of the communist movement in the country. It even led to the surrender of the Huk Supremo, Luis Taruc. The event also crowned Ninoy Aquino who mediated Taruc’s surrender.

If there is anything that we could significantly consider as RM’s historical legacy to his country, it is the change in the socio-political tradition of our republic. The elitist values giving way to the populist one.

Mt. Manunggal is in Balamban, and I am not sure whether I should be happy or not that RM chose to donate his life to the town’s glory. What I am sure, however, is that Councilor Dave Karamihan, nephew of our Mayor Alex Binghay, has been working hard to make the commemoration of RM’s death in Mt. Manunggal a meaningful one.