Crazy world of black propaganda

By Alex P. Vidal 

“The feat of surviving is directly related to the capacity of the survivor.”  —Claire Cameron

WE remember during the 1986 presidential snap elections in the Philippines, then President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) ran a blitzkrieg in the mass media that the Filipinos would end up as the next “boat people” of Asia if the communists were allowed to win.

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.

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Footages 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 to seek refuge in other neighboring Southeast Asian countries.

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

We recalled the “boat people” episode when hundreds of immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar landed in Indonesia and the Philippines after floating for months on overcrowded boats years before Marcos’ son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Jr. became president.

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

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

Some governments in the region had reportedly turned away migrants.

The Los Angeles Times had 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.

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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 way stations to acquiring political asylum in other nations, including the United States.

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After reading some of my articles about the 2025 French Open and the recently concluded 2025 Wimbledon Open, many of our readers and friends told us they loved tennis, but they could not understand how it was scored.

In order to fully appreciate the sport that has produced Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King, we must be able to understand how it is scored.

In tennis, a player wins a game by winning four points, with specific point names: 15, 30, 40, and game.

If both players reach 40, it’s called deuce, and a player needs to win two consecutive points to win the game after deuce. A set is won by the first player to win six games, with a two-game margin (e.g., 6-4 or 7-5). If the score reaches 6-6, a tiebreak is played to determine the set winner. A match is typically won by the first player to win two out of three sets, or three out of five sets in some matches.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)