Light-A-Fire Movement

The Light-A-Fire Movement (often referred to as the "LAFM", "L-A-F", or "L-A-F Movmement") was a small guerrilla resistance group that fought against the martial law regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. This was done through small, symbolic acts of sabotage, which were directed against offices and businesses that were associated with Marcos, with the aim of encouraging other Filipinos to rise up against Marcos. The LAFM is notable as being the first armed anti-Marcos group that aligned with the pre-martial law political center, as opposed to movements that were orientated towards the extreme left or the extreme right.

The members of this group had spent the first years of martial law, from 1972 to 1978, opposing Marcos through diplomacy and negotiation. However, political suppression and widely recognized election fraud during the 1978 Philippine parliamentary election convinced them that Marcos would never willingly allow the rise of a genuine viable political opposition.

The group's strategy involved staging small but attention-grabbing explosions and fires in various establishments that were owned by known "Marcos cronies"; the group also sent nonlethal letter bombs, which were meant to shock Marcos' technocrats into withdrawing from their involvement in the administration. Their goal was to demonstrate that there were people who were willing to rise up against Marcos and belie Marcos' propaganda narrative that his regime was stable. They had little local success, due to Marcos' control over local media coverage, but they gained some success in getting attention from the international media, which added to the international pressure that was put on the regime to finally end martial law.

The group was short-lived; its most important members were caught in December 1979, only a year after the group's formation. After the core members of the Light-A-Fire Movement were imprisoned, a different, better-trained guerilla group called the April 6 Liberation Movement took over the LAFM's cause and tactics, which led the United States to pressure Marcos into nominally ending the formal state martial law in January 1981.

Despite this victory, Marcos was still in power, and he retained his ability to rule by decree and to order warrantless arrests. He did so for five more years, until he was finally deposed in the civilian-led People Power Revolution. The members of the Light-A-Fire Movement were then either freed from Marcos' prisons, or came back from exile. They then returned to their pre-martial law roles in government and in the business sector.

Background

Main articles: Martial law under Ferdinand Marcos, Human rights abuses of the Marcos dictatorship, and Middle force opposition to the Marcos dictatorship

Barred from running for a third term as president in 1973, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos announced martial law on September 23, 1972, citing the civil unrest that arose after the 1969 Philippine balance of payments crisis as a justification for the proclamation. Through this decree, Marcos seized emergency powers, which gave him full control over the Philippines' military, and the authority to suppress and abolish the freedom of speech, the freedom of the press, and many other civil liberties. He dissolved the Philippine Congress, and shut down media establishments that were critical of his administration. He also ordered the immediate arrest of his political opponents and critics. Among those arrested were senators, including the key oppositionists Jose W. Diokno, Benigno Aquino Jr., Jovito Salonga, and Raul Manglapus. With practically all of his political opponents either arrested, in hiding, or in exile, Marcos would eventually be able to hold on to power for another 14 years beyond his first two terms as president.

This period in Philippine history is remembered for the Marcos administration's record of human rights abuses, particularly targeting political opponents, student activists, journalists, religious workers, farmers, and others who fought against the Marcos dictatorship. Based on the documentation of Amnesty International, Task Force Detainees of the Philippines, and similar human rights monitoring entities, historians believe that the Marcos dictatorship was marked by 3,257 known extrajudicial killings, 35,000 documented tortures, 759 "disappeared", and 70,000 incarcerations. After Marcos was ousted, government investigators discovered that the declaration of martial law had also allowed the Marcoses to hide secret stashes of unexplained wealth that various courts later determined to be "of criminal origin".

Formation

The idea of waging an armed resistance against the Marcos dicatorship was not a novel concept when the Light-A-Fire Movement was formed in 1978; an armed leftist resistance that was led by the New People's Army, and a Muslim Separatist conflict, which was led by the Moro National Liberation Front (and later the Moro Islamic Liberation Front), had been ongoing for years by that time. However, those Filipinos who counted themselves as politically "centrist", and did not wish to link up with either the extreme left or the extreme right, mostly favored unarmed resistance strategies. For those who could leave the Philippines, this meant lobbying and diplomacy in the legislatures of liberal western countries; those who remained in the Philippines documented the various abuses of the Marcos dictatorship, so that these could be exposed to the international community. Either way, they sought to belie Marcos' propaganda narrative that the implementation of martial law in the Philippines was peaceful and lawful.

In the wake of the 1978 Philippine parliamentary election, however, some anti-Marcos activists who were in exile in the United States realized that Marcos' propaganda machine and suppressive political tactics were so effective at hiding Marcos' abuses that it would be impossible to force Marcos to restore democracy through merely diplomatic means.

During that election, Marcos did not allow opposition parties to properly organize, and, when the results came out, they were so widely believed to be fraudulent that even the former US President Jimmy Carter remarked that "Marcos stole the election".

Nevertheless, these anti-Marcos activists drew inspiration from the noise barrage that the opposition had organized on April 6, 1978 – the night before the election – which had been a rare opportunity for ordinary citizens to express protest against the repression of the Marcos regime. Taking their cue from the success of the noise barrage, they believed that if centrist mderate Filipinos saw that people with mainstream political views were willing to take action against the regime, then they would soon rise up against Marcos and force him to abolish martial law.

Among those known to be involved in the LAFM were Business Day publisher Eduardo Olaguer, his friends Othoniel and Ester Paredes Jimenez, Asia Institute of Management professor Gaston Ortigas, and Filipino-American Businessman Ben Lim – all of whom were later tried by the Marcos regime for their alleged membership in the group. Some of the people who are said to have helped the group by providing financial support include Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation Chairman Alfonso Yuchengco, industrialists Vicente Puyat and J. Amado Araneta, and former Senator Oscar Ledesma.

1978-1979 "Acts of Sabotage"

In the months between its formation in 1978 and its effective dissolution in December 1979, the Light-A-Fire movement was able to implement a number of its small scale "acts of sabotage", the most prominent of which was the fire on the Floating Manila Bay Casino which had been operating since 1977; and a bombing at the former offices of the Commission on Elections, which by then had become a symbol of the electoral fraud that was widely believed to have plagued the April 1978 elections. They were also able to do property damage to a number of luxury hotels that were owned by "Marcos cronies". They also managed to send a small non-fatal letter bomb, which was meant to scare the Education Minister Onofre Corpuz. None of these attacks caused any casualties, as the group confined itself to "legitimate use of force", while upholding Catholic precepts against killing. While more potent, lethal attacks took place shortly after the LAFM went inactive, this was the work of other groups.

The attacks received little media coverage in the Philippines because Marcos still had control over reportage, as one of his powers under martial law. However, as international pressure groups were lobbying for western countries to clamp down on Marcos, the incidents succeeded in getting attention both from international media and in diplomatic circles. They effectively disproved Marcos' claims that he had broad national support in the Philippines, and put pressure on the regime to finally end martial law.

1979 Capture by Marcos

Ultimately, the LAFM was short-lived because its members were caught by the Marcos regime in December 1979, only a year after the group's formation and seven years before the Philippines would finally oust Marcos in the civilian-led People Power Revolution.

The Marcos regime's first major success against the group came when one of its members, after being stopped by customs while travelling to and from the Philippines, gave US Customs officials some details about the group believing that the US would side with their cause. Instead, the US passed the details on to the Marcos regime. Not long after, in December 1979, LAFM member Ben Lim was caught with explosives and LAFM documents at the Manila International Effort, which allowed then to arrest sixteen members of the group. Mindful of the potential backlash from arresting respected personages, the Marcos regime chose not to file charges against a Jesuit priest and various businessmen who had been implicated by the documents.

After the core group of the Light-A-Fire Movement were imprisoned, a different, better-trained guerilla group called the April 6 Liberation Movement took over the LAFM's cause and tactics, which led the United States to pressure Marcos into nominally end the formal state Martial Law in January 1981.

After the People Power Revolution

Despite the nominal lifting of Martial Law, Marcos was still in power and retained his ability to rule by decree and to order warrantless arrests. He did so for five more years until he was finally deposed in the civilian-led People Power revolution. The members of the Light A Fire Movement were then either freed from Marcos' prisons, or came back from exile. They then returned to their pre-martial law roles in government and the business sector.