WHENEVER Filipinos think of Americans as friends, what usually
come to mind are these images: the GI giving out chocolates to children or the Peace Corps volunteer helping rural folk build their own water system. These days, the American
friend is also the pen pal who woos a Filipina or the US embassy official who helps one get a visa.
There is, however, another kind of American friend that
Filipinos have. Many Pinoys who have visited Boston, Massachusetts, for a few months' sojourn as visiting fellows or students at Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) or Boston University have met him. He is Daniel Boone Schirmer. If his name sounds familiar especially to viewers who watched a certain television show some
decades back, this is because Schirmer descended from the American frontiersman, Daniel Boone, and was named after him.
Schirmer, now 87, was born on Feb. 22. As he himself wryly
said, "Showing a patriotic impulse in embryo, I chose Feb. 22, George Washington's birthday, to make my appearance."
It was a kind of patriotism, however, that would manifest
itself in a way that was different from what most Americans and his government were familiar with. For Boone-as he was called by his Filipino and American friends-strongly
opposed, and fought, the interventionist policies and practices of the United States government, especially as these applied to the Philippines. In the early 1970s, when
opposition to the Marcos dictatorship was not yet fashionable, Boone had already been supporting Filipinos who were in exile in the US as a result of their opposition to
martial law.
In November 1973, Boone and 60 other concerned Americans and
Filipino-Americans from Chicago, New York City, Washington D.C., Boston, Connecticut and Philadelphia, founded the organization called Friends of the Filipino People (FFP).
Perhaps as a reminder of the true ideals that America should stand for, the FFP was established in Philadephia, where in 1789 the United States declared its independence from
Britain and adopted its own Constitution.
After he retired as a professor in Boston University, Boone led
the American movement in opposing his government's support for the Marcos dictatorship. The FFP joined other US-based Filipino groups like the Katipunan ng Demokratikong
Pilipino(KDP), the Movement for a Free Philippines (MFP) and the Anti-Martial Law Coalition (AMLC). Together, they worked to stop US military assistance and political support
for the Marcos dictatorship and to inform Americans about human rights violations.
Environmental engineer Dr. Jorge Emmanuel, a US-based Filipino
activist, remembers those days. "To see an old man working feverishly in the FFP office, folding pamphlets, licking hundreds of stamps, answering phone calls, and working late
into the evenings with such intensity gave us so much hope then (during the anti-Marcos struggle) in the face of overwhelming odds. He inspired both Filipinos and Americans
alike."
As an organizer and activist, Boone took part in anti-Marcos
demonstrations and helped lobby in the US Congress for an end to American collaboration with the dictatorial regime. Years later, he and his organization played an important
role in pressuring the US government to respect the historic September 16, 1991 decision of the Philippine Senate in rejecting the proposed treaty that would have extended the
life of the US bases.
In his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which he shares with
his wife Peggy, the Harvard-educated professor would invite Filipinos to simple dinners in "house meetings" exchanging ideas with them in a veritable smorgasbord of insights
on how to improve the conditions of working people in the US and the Philippines. The Schirmer's book-crammed home at Gerry St. was a house brewing with intellectual
fermentation. They were host to a stream of activists, exiles and graduate students who have visited Boston during the Marcos years, including the late senator Benigno Aquino
Jr. , senator Jose W. Diokno, Chair of the Civil Liberties Union (CLU) and Sr. Mariani Dimaranan, Chairperson of Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFD).
In the early 1980s, the Schirmers moved to the FFP's national
office in Washington D.C. and shared living quarters with Charito Planas, then the leading woman opponent of Marcos in exile. (At that time, Planas was supporting her
political activism in the US by selling pizzas and delivering these herself door to door.)
Unlike many Filipinos who used their Harvard education to
simply advance their careers and make life better for themselves, Boone used his world-class education to help a country thousands of miles away from his own. It would shame
many Filipinos to know that Boone spent many years of his life as a full-time activist dedicated to the advancement of Philippine freedom, democracy and sovereignty. Whether
it was on the issue of the Marcos dictatorship, the US military bases, the Balikatan military exercises, toxic waste contamination, or Amerasian children, Boone was in
solidarity with the Filipino people's struggle and at the forefront of it in the United States.
His interest in the Philippines began as a scholar. This was
in the 1960s, "when I was going after a Ph.D. in US history," he said. His thesis topic was the Anti-Imperialist League, an American organization that led massive opposition
to the US conquest and colonization of the Philippines at the beginning of the 20th century. (So influential was the league that when the US Senate voted in 1899 on the Treaty
of Paris-an agreement where the defeated Spaniards sold the Philippines to the United States for $20 million--it won only by one vote). But Boone also had a political
motivation for his thesis. At that time, he was one of the increasing number of Americans opposing the Vietnam War. He had "hoped a study of popular opposition to a previous
imperial adventure would contribute to the movement against the Vietnam War."
In his study of Philippine-US history, Boone was impressed by
what he called "the courageous fight the Filipinos have waged against US domination." He work would open the door to "one of the richest and meaningful experiences" of his
life: participation and leadership in the Philippine-US solidarity movement to strengthen democratic policies in both countries.
His thesis was published as a book titled, "Republic or Empire:
American Resistance to the Philippine War," and came out in 1972, the year Marcos declared martial law. Quickly, the anti-Marcos exiles in the US who read the book came to see
him. They told Boone that it was all very well to record his government's past misdeeds in the Philippines, but that he should get involved in the present. Specifically, they
suggested that he join them in opposing his country's economic and military support for the Marcos dictatorship.
According to Stephen R. Shalom, American author of the book,
The United States and the Philippines: A Study of Neocolonialism, "Boone always understood that the struggle for justice in the Philippines was primarily a struggle for the
Filipino people themselves. But he knew, too, that the US government and the elite interests it represents have been striving for more than a century to dominate the
Philippines, and that therefore people of goodwill in the United States-friends of the Filipino people-would have to add their efforts to the cause."
In his distinct Bostonian accent, Boone would speak tirelessly
in defense of Philippine sovereignty against US intervention. He would also write about his government's detrimental policies in the Philippines. Many of his articles and
published speeches carried the same theme: that US policies must be critically studied and those that are detrimental to the interests of both Filipinos and Americans should
be opposed. He took pains to make Filipinos and Americans understand that the basic interests of both peoples are the same, but it is the interests of corporate America, the
US defense establishment, and global capital that continue to dominate much of US policies and US-Philippine relations. But Boone took a step further: he was a leading figure
in such U.S.-based campaigns and networks like the Campaign Against Military Intervention in the Philippines (CAMIP) in 1983 and the Campaign Against US Military Bases in the
Philippines (CAB) in 1986. He helped raise the awareness of the American Churches so that they too, would be able to effectively bring the issues of human rights and U.S.
intervention through the U.S. bases and U.S. military assistance, to the greater mainstream of U.S. society, the American people. In fact, groups like the FFF and the
American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) succeeded in pressing the U.S. Congress to pass the Human Rights Amendment, putting in question U.S. military and economic aid to
Third World dictators.
According to Donald Goertzen, director of the University of
California's Education Abroad Program-Philippines, Boone "strongly identified with the best in American democratic political culture." He believed that, "Only equals can be
friends." "For that reason," Goertzen said, "Boone always maintained that friendship between the US and the Philippines could only flourish after the US gave up its colonial
pretentions."
Boone's opposition to what he regards as his government's
imperialist activities drove some Filipino activists to compare him to the great American author Mark Twain. Twain, a leading member of the Anti-Imperialist League and who
opposed American occupation of the Philippines more than a hundred years ago, believed that such US policies often ran against the ideals of liberty and justice on which
America was founded. Shalom further noted that, "both saw US domination of the Philippines as a betrayal of fundamental human values."
Boone's critical role and leadership of the anti-bases movement
in the US was given recognition by Filipino anti-bases forces who, in celebrating in 1993 the 2nd anniversary of the Philippine Senate's 1991 rejection of the bases treaty,
honored him along with former Senate President Jovito Salonga and former senator Wigberto Tanada. It was a recognition that he was reportedly so proud of.
His activism, however, has not lessened his humanity or sense
of humor. His letters to friends, scribbled in longhand, are usually short but hilarious. Once, writing about his wife Peggy's diminishing memory and his own prolonged
convalescence from a bout with pneumonia, he said, "At any rate, we're still here still complaining about the capitalist system to the very last of our limited capacity. That
is the bright side! And I mean it." Another time, after my visit from Boston, he wrote my wife Chit about how I "was very helpful politically" to them during my visit. But,
he added, "Please encourage Roland to come more often. He is so efficient a dishwasher!"
In the early 1990s, after the successful campaign to dismantle
the US bases in the Philippines, Boone donated to the Third World Studies Center in UP Diliman his entire private collection of more than 4,000 books, many of them rare first
editions, on the Philippines, the Philippine-American War and U.S. interventions worldwide. When he found out that it had been named the "Boone Schirmer Collection," he wrote
the Third World Studies director to register his strong protest. He did not want his donation to carry his name. He preferred that it be named after the Filipino hero,
Apolinario Mabini, perhaps to remind intellectuals about their role as patriots. Thus did the books come to be known as the Apolinario Mabini Collection.
Decades after his first brush with activism, Boone, now a frail
and thin six-footer plus, has not lost the fire that burned in him when he fought against US government support for Marcos. He is aghast at his government's current global
role: "The present Bush administration represents the most extensive and heavily armed empire in history. Its towering economic capacity gives it an influence that is nearly
global in entirety. Guarding this is an unparalleled military establishment of global reach and frightful nuclear potential. Under the cover of 'The War against Terrorism,'
Washington carries on its hegemonic policy in the Philippines. With the collaboration of the present Philippine government, it is attempting to reestablish its military
domination of that country so as to provide a stepping-stone for US military intervention in Asia and the Middle East."
Characteristically, he said, "I oppose Philippine-US
relationship of this character. Rather, I support the cooperation of democratic-minded Filipinos with like-minded citizens of the United States to further policies of peace
and justice in both countries and throughout the world."
His stand is not a popular one, not in his own country or even
in the former colony whose people's struggles he has waged as his own. But unpopularity does not discourage him.
Recalling a bleak moment in the fight against the Marcos
dictatorship when opposition to it was "but a small voice," the activist Emmanuel says, "Boone tried to lift my flagging spirits. He said that as a historian, he has the
advantage of seeing things from a historical perspective. History is a chronicle of human struggles to build a better world for all but even as humanity moves in that
direction, it will have many deviations. A setback may feel devastating when it happens but it is only a small deviation in the larger movement. There will always be a few who
will keep nudging humanity to move toward that vision. That, he said, is the role of social justice advocates in every generation."
July, 2002
