BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Pablo Borbon Main II

Rizal Ave. Extension, Batangas City
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING, ARCHITECTURE & FINE ARTS

THE PLAZA MIRANDA BOMBING

A RESEARCH PAPER PRESENTED TO MR. JAMES KENNETH ATIENZA

IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR
READINGS IN PHILIPPINE HISTORY

Submittedd by:
Osumo, Jay-R
Mendoza, Rizel
Noche, Noemie
Padua, Alyssa Rae

November 2020
 CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

         Most historical events that were controversial from the day it happened were still an argument up to this
day. One of those was a bombing in the Plaza Miranda way back on August 21, 1971, and through the years, it
has been neglected because most Filipinos only remember the assassination of Ninoy Aquino Jr. which
happened exactly 12 years after the said tragedy occurred. Before martial law, this place was used to be the
scene of numerous conventions arranged and managed by understudy activists or students with different sectors
that are opposing Marcos. Despite that, it was still indeed a remarkable mark on Philippine history for it has been
associated with the political situation by that time.
During the campaign rally of candidates belonging to the Liberal Party, an explosion had shocked
everyone leading to cases of deaths and many people were injured. An audience of 4,000 were accumulated
before the stage of the eight Liberal Party senatorial candidates had their chance for talks with their speeches
and platforms regarding the political race when bombs were thrown at the stage. Numerous senatorial were
injured and killed Ben Roxas, a Manila Times photographer, and a five-year-old child. The representatives or the
political candidates that were severely injured due to the blast were Senators Jovito Salonga, Sergio. Osmeña
Jr., Eva Estrada Kalaw, and Sonny Osmeña. The mentioned party and the Nacionalista Party which was headed
by Ferdinand Marcos were both regarded to be in the elite class. This incident was all blamed to the former
president Marcos for he was known to have deeds of accusing to pin the blame on someone completely. People
think that it was planned by him because of a belief that it was his act of motive to declare Martial Law which was
implemented a year after the bombing. On September 23, 1972, President Ferdinand Marcos finally executed
Proclamation 1081, forcing military law on the Philippines. He has supervised a merciless crackdown on the
working masses in the country by utilizing its tyrannical forces. When a mass development expelled him and a
part of the military and Washington pulled out their help for his administration, he has chosen to make his military
autocracy to stay in power again until 1986.
For ages, a confession was made through interviews and published articles by some of the members of
the Communist Party of the Philippines, an association that Jose Maria Sison also known as "Joma'' has founded.
Senator Salonga, who was the most severely injured in the bombing, has a strong conviction that Marcos was not
the mastermind, and insists on claiming that it was all the revolutionary plan of the Communist Party of the
Philippines chief. This organization is known to have objectives of seeking ways to overthrow the Philippine
government for another state driven by the common laborers and to remove the U.S. impact from the Philippines.
It was originally formed in 1968 while the New People's Army also known as NPA, was established in 1969 which
is said to be an outfitted wing of it. Since both associations are so firmly interlaced, they are frequently addressed
as one which is CPP-NPA. Building support among the rustic lower class, even though it has worked all through
the country, became the center or main agenda of CPP-NPA.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the CPP-NPA has records of participation in huge degrees of brutality and is the
world's most established existing Communist uprising during its continuous growth in numbers of members,
making also a big impact or influence on the country. Going back to the issue about the incident, Victor Corpuz
who was an AFP deserter turned-rebel returnee had finally uncovered that the CPP chief Sison was the one who
requested the bombarding while the campaign is being conducted in the Plaza Miranda by candidates under
Liberal Party. It was stated in the book "Quiet War," written by himself about his assessment saying that he was
available when a few representatives of their organization had plotted the incident. The former President had also
unveiled that the CPP was behind the explosion in the Plaza Miranda to weaken the administration which later on
prompted Marcos to present the Martial law. Sison met with CPP-NPA Central Committee individuals to talk
about his arrangement to assault a convention held in Manila by the Liberal Party, opposing Marcos. To incite
another administration crackdown and preferably gain support for the CPP-NPA was the motivation or the main
goal behind this planned attack. 
This revolutionary plan of the communists was left well enough alone for quite a long time. The
bombarding was slowly uncovered as per the order of Jose Maria Sison. There was execution with the party's
Executive Committee of the Political Bureau, his most internal circle. Only those valiant, youthful activists and the
CPP chief’s inner circle who attempted the activity, trusting it was for just a noble motivation, realizing it was the
Communist Party administration's activity. Everyone had no clue that it was all the idea of Joma as part of his
secret operation even Benito Tiamzon who was the Present Communist Party Chairman. The intention was
clearly to strengthen the split inside the elite class to have a revolutionary flow in between. In normal language or
putting everything into simple words, the bombing would be the one to push the Liberal Party and their supporters
to strike back at Marcos even more viciously. With these events, it is clear that CPP was the one that
administered the explosion
Though it has been cleared out who was the mastermind in the Plaza Miranda bombing, rumors still
spread that there was a conspiracy between the organization of CPP and Ninoy Aquino Jr. Authorities had
continuously insisted that the CPP chairman which was Joma had alarmed the senator about what kind of
tragedy was about to happen during that campaign rally for he was the only one in their Party that did not make it
to be there. The speculations continued to arise knowing that the former Senator Aquino's presence on the
meeting de avance who was considered to be prominent on the Liberal Party was not observable, leaving
Filipinos doubts whether he was part of this revolutionary movement of the communists.
 CHAPTER II

EVIDENCE

The Plaza Miranda Bombing: Conspiracy or Not?

 Ninoy Aquino’s alliance with CPP-NPA in Plaza Miranda Bombing

 Marcos believed that Aquino himself planned or at least was involved, in conspiracy with the
communists, in the Plaza Miranda attack. With such brazen use of violence, Marcos could but
conclude that he would be killed, outrightly or through a death sentence by a court for that alleged
deed, when he stepped down from power in 1973. Imposing martial law and becoming a dictator,
was his survival plan—with the perks of course of absolute power and unlimited wealth. Marcos
had good reasons to suspect Aquino. The opposition leader Aquino had supported the then rag-
tag New People's Army, by giving them refuge and supplies in the vast Hacienda Luisita owned by
his wife's family.

 According to Marcos, the CPP carried out the bombing to advance its design of toppling the
government and taking over political control of the country. Since Marcos had on various
occasions accused Ninoy of coddling the communists, if not being a communist himself, he, too,
had a leg to stand on in his battle with Ninoy for credibility in the eyes of the nation. By equating
Ninoy with the communists and then accusing the communists of being the perpetrators of the
Plaza Miranda bombing, Marcos cleverly impressed upon the nation that it was, in the end, Ninoy
who masterminded the gruesome dastardly act.

 The only LP stalwart who wasn’t in Plaza Miranda when the grenades were thrown was then Sen.
Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. Aquino critics insist that he was warned by Joma not to be in that rally.
He claimed later, according to one report that he was with the Laurels in a nearby restaurant who
were having a birthday celebration. He said he was delayed in going to Plaza Miranda since he
was waiting for Cocoy Laurel's singing number to end.

 According to Jose Maria Sison, “There was no formal alliance between the CPP-NPA and Ninoy
Aquino. By the absence of formal alliance, I mean that there was no written instrument of alliance
(document) and there was no organizational form to embody the alliance.  But there was an
informal and objective alliance.” The CPP and NPA and Ninoy were informal and practical
cooperators against the Marcos regime from late 1968 onwards up to his assassination by the
military minions of Marcos and further on with his wife as an ally after his assassination. 

 “In private conversations with two Emboffs Sept 12, Senator Aquino said that on Sept 7 he had
met with Sison and several other members of CPP/ML Central Committee in a house in suburban
Makati. At the meeting, he was presented with a proposal to join a broad opposition front including
part of the Liberal Party, CPP/ML, and other radical groups. According to Aquino, this proposition
was premature since the situation had not yet reached that stage of deterioration which would
prompt him to take such a move. He did, however, agree to provide CPP/ML with a statement of
program and principles on which he invited their comments with a view of an established basis for
 possible future cooperation. He did not, however, show Emboffs copy of the paper or discuss its
contents.”

  As Senator Jovito Salonga says about Ninoy, “Siya ang aming star. Dahil pagka Siya ay nakita ng
tao na nasa stage na, naghihiyawan ang tao ng bomba. Gusto namin ay bomba. (He was our star.
Because whenever the people spot him onstage, the people shout bomba. We want bomba.)”.
That August 21, 1971, bomba did explode in Plaza Miranda. Two powerful grenades rocked the
rally. One missed the stage, blasting people on the spot, killing eight, among them a 10-year-old
girl vendor, and seriously injuring 120. The other grenade landed on stage, maiming all senatorial
candidates, the most critically injured being Sen. Jovito Salonga and Sen. John Osmeña.

 According to Joseph Scalice Ph.D. who conducted the research entitled Crisis of Revolutionary
Leadership: Martial Law and the Communist Parties of the Philippines, 1957-1974 (Scalise,
pg.378) “Aquino allowed [NPA head Kumander] Dante to move freely throughout his Hacienda
Luisita, and Yap, on returning from a visit to China, had given Dante a copy of Mao’s Red Book.
(RDT: Yap is the late congressman Jose Yap, Aquino’s close ally in Tarlac. Ironically perhaps, he
was Cory Aquino’s peace negotiator with the CPP.)

 “Dante provided Aquino with an armed base of popular opposition to Marcos. Connecting Dante
with Jose Ma. Sison and the CPP presented Aquino with the possibility of expanding his base of
armed support to a national scale. In October 1968, Aquino and Sison met and discussed ‘how big
a problem Marcos was,’ and Yap, Aquino, and Rodolfo Salas [who would succeed Dante as NPA
head] arranged a meeting between Sison and Dante.

 “The meeting took place in late January 1969 in Dante’s hometown of Talimundoc, Capas. Aquino
later reported to his friends that he drove Sison to this meeting. Among the crucial conditions
which facilitated both the discussions between Sison and Dante from January to March 1969, as
well as the founding of the CPP at the end of March, was the demilitarization of Tarlac from Nov. 7,
1968, to April 10, 1969.

 “Dante and his men moved about in peace throughout the province, and Sison and his cohort
traveled freely between Manila and Tarlac. The demilitarization, which effectively removed the
massive military buildup of Task Force Lawin from the province, lasted precisely from the founding
of the party to the establishment of the New People’s Army. The negotiated removal of the military
was entirely the doing of Aquino and was referred to in the press as the ‘Ninoy Aquino peace
plan’.”

 (Scalice, pg392) “Dante and (his deputy Rodolfo) Salas became political instructors in a party
training school set up within the Voice of America radio relay station compound, housed on
Aquino’s Hacienda Luisita. Dante’s men worked as security guards there and they gave Dante and
Salas, dressed in blue security guard uniforms, access to the compound.”

  Sison’s plan right after the NPA was founded in 1969 was to build the communist first base in
Isabela in the thick of the Sierra Madre mountains. This was of course his attempt to replicate
Mao’s famous Red base in Yan’an, where the Chinese communists built up its forces to eventually
defeat the Kuomintang in China’s civil war.

 (Scalice, pg.292) Sison’s fledgling band of former Huks like Dante and student drop-outs from
Manila’s universities managed to build a base of sorts in Isabela, where an obscure fishing port
 there would be used as a landing site for Chinese-made rifles in May 1972.“Dy broke with the NPA
with the declaration of martial law and allied with Marcos, thus securing his hold as governor for
the next twenty years. The NPA was friendly not only with the local political elite of Isabela but with
logging corporations as well, and Sison recounted that ‘in the forest region of Isabela, we did
united front work with logging businessmen’.”

 Aquino’s money (“from the coffers of his wife.” Scalice scoffed) as well as from anti-Marcos
oligarchs such as the Lopezes — whose plea for a rate increase for their Meralco electric
distribution utility Marcos denied — funded the CPP’s front organizations, including their huge
1970 rallies romanticized as the “First Quarter Storm,”

 The NPA was officially established in March 1969 in Capas, Tarlac by Dante and his eight
lieutenants, along with Sison and four members of the CPP’s central committee. One of the eight
was one Ruben Tuazon, known as Kumander Rubio and barrio captain of a town within the
Cojuangcos’ Hacienda Luisita. According to Scalice, Tuazon was Aquino’s employee until his
death right after martial law was declared.
 Tuazon would be an intriguing protagonist in the CPP-Aquino saga. Scalice gave credence to an
obscure and forgotten newspaper report in 1989 that it was Tuazon, then still a party central
committee member, who tipped Aquino that the Liberal Party meeting de avance on Aug. 21,
1971, would be bombed by CPP operatives and that he should delay his scheduled attendance in
that rally.

 “During the same meeting, Aquino informed the Embassy officers that he had recently held a
secret meeting with Sison. Aquino and Sison discussed the possibility of forming a broad united
front in opposition to the Marcos administration. Aquino said that he had been offered and had
declined as being premature and unwarranted by the present situation, the position of leading a
revolutionary government ‘in the hills’ in alliance with the CPP.

 Ninotchka Rosca recounted, “After the headcount, through the numbness, the question that
immediately pops up is where in god’s name is Benigno Aquino Jr., the so-called Wonder Boy?
Ninoy appears later, unscathed, by what, he recounts later, is an amazing series of coincidences
and the closest of calls. He was not there, he says, but was on the way when Plaza Miranda
cracked up in that explosion.”

 Samuel ‘Bob’ Paquis, a cadre of the CPP/NPA, was the driver of the Volkswagen beetle car which
brought bomber Danny Cordero to the area of Plaza Miranda. Maria Corazon Sumulong
Cojuangco Aquino became president of the Philippines in 1986 and her amnesty was formally
announced sometime in early 1987. During this time, Samuel ‘Bob’ Paquis became a “rebel
returnee” under the rebel rehabilitation program of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Civil
Relations Services (AFPCRS). Soon, both houses of congress began investigating the Plaza
Miranda bombing. Bob Paquis was asked to attend one such hearing in the Lower house, where
he was accompanied by Col Oscar Florendo, who was then concurrent Armed Forces Secretary
Joint Staff and AFP Spokesman and PIO. When a related hearing in the senate on Plaza Miranda
was scheduled, with Senator Jovito Salonga as senate president (Senator Salonga’s term was
from 1987 to 1991), the AFP was again all set to bring Bob Paquis to attend the senate hearing.
However, then sitting President Maria Corazon C. Aquino made back-door moves so that the
hearings would altogether be stopped. President Corazon C. Aquino also allowed a Utrecht,
Netherlands exile for Jose Maria Sison who was earlier freed by her amnesty proclamation. Except
for being mentioned in the media once in a while, the Plaza Miranda bombing has never again
been mentioned officially.
 CPP-NPA as the mastermind in Plaza Miranda Bombing
 According to Victor Corpus, an army lieutenant who carted arms from the Philippine Military
Academy (PMA) and joined the communist-led New People’s Army (NPA) in 1970, it was Jose Ma.
Sison, with the knowledge of a few, trusted members of the CPP Central Committee, who was
behind the Plaza Miranda bombing. In February 1971, a few months before the Plaza Miranda
bombing, Sison went to the NPA headquarters in Isabela where he and NPA commander Dante
Buscayno had been staying. Jose Luneta, then secretary-general of the Party, joined them a little
later. Sison told them about an expected arms shipment from Communist China and the need to
produce the conditions that would rapidly expand the strength of the NPA, which had only around
90 fighters at that time in Isabela. It was necessary, Corpus quoted Sison as saying, to intensify
the conflict between the NP and the LP, the two factions of the ruling class. What if the two could
be violently set against each other, such as by disrupting an LP rally, the ruling class would be
weakened and the moderates would react by joining the Left, thereby solving the manpower
problem to match the thousands of firearms expected from China.
 
 Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose Ma. Sison is the mastermind in the
1971 Plaza Miranda bombing that left nine people dead and more than 90 others injured, one of
CPP's founding fathers said. In a documentary produced by Sambayanan, CPP founding member
Ruben Guevarra tagged Sison as the one who gave orders to throw grenades at the said
gathering. “The Plaza Miranda bombing was only a part of a series of campaigns launched by the
CPP. This was part of what we call ‘Oplan Big Leap Forward.’ The Plaza Miranda Bombing was
intended to expose and isolate former President Marcos from the Filipino people. But the true
intention was to demonize Marcos,” recalled Guevarra, who was also then part of CPP's Central
Committee. Guevarra said anyone who will reveal the CPP's involvement in the bombing will suffer
the highest form of punishment in their organization but added that bomb man Danny Cordero
himself stands firm on the fact that it was Sison who gave them the command for the bombing.

 Buhay Representative Lito Atienza said the mastermind behind the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing
was the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison, not the late
strongman Ferdinand Marcos. Atienza himself was a survivor of the Plaza Miranda bombing. He
was one of the Liberal Party’s youngest candidates for councilor then.

 Jovito Salonga, in his autobiography, states his belief that Sison and the CPP were responsible.
Former New People's Army commander retired Armed Forces of the Philippines Brig. General
Victor Corpus has also made statements alleging that Sison ordered the bombing of the political
rally. Corpus wrote in the autobiographical prologue to his 1989 book Silent War that he was
present when some leaders of the CPP discussed the bombing after it took place. In a 2004
interview with journalist Max Soliven, Corpus affirmed that Sison (spoken of specifically, by name)
dispatched the cadre who attacked the meeting with a hand-grenade. Based on interviews of The
Washington Post with unnamed former Communist Party of the Philippines Officials, it was alleged
that "the (Communist) party leadership planned -- and three operatives carried out -- the attack in
an attempt to provoke government repression and push the country to the brink of revolution.
(Communist Party Leader) Sison had calculated that Marcos could be provoked into cracking
down on his opponents, thereby driving thousands of political activists into the underground, the
former party officials said. Recruits were urgently needed, they said, to make use of a large influx
of weapons and financial aid that China had already agreed to provide."
 The former officials, four of whom were members of the party's governing Central Committee
before their arrests in the 1970s, acknowledged that the bombing was the work of party operatives
acting on orders of the guerrilla organization's founding chairman, Jose Maria Sison. They
described how the party leadership planned and three operatives carried out the attack in an
attempt to provoke government repression and push the country to the brink of revolution. They
also said the attack squad's leader, a fiery party organizer named Danny Cordero, was executed
by his Communist comrades a year after the bombing in effect, to silence him.

 In an article written by Francisco Tuyay, it was mentioned that Defense Secretary Delfin
Lorenzana has helped Filipinos to recall the outrages that the founder of the Communist Party of
the Philippines (CPP), Chairman Joma Sison has sustained in the 50 years of its revolutionary
movement during the military law years which includes the notorious Plaza Miranda bombing.
Lorenzana emphasized that it was Sison who masterminded this incident on August 21, 1971.

 That 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing, not just Ninoy’s killing, makes August 21 of every year truly a
day to remember. For one, it was not just another bombing. It marked a turning point in the
nation’s historical journey to where we are at this time, decades after as a good part of our politics
still revolve around the dictates and personages of the Marcos years. As one of the more
prominent and heavily injured survivors, former Senate President Jovito Salonga, recounted just
before he passed away, the public was made to believe that Marcos orchestrated the bombing to
extend his stay in power. It turned out, based on his findings and the confession of one of the
bomb-throwers, that the bombing was a pilot undertaken by the reorganized Communist Party
under the leadership of Jose Ma. Sison to force Marcos’ hand to “declare martial law” which he did
a year after. Sison, who remains in exile in the Netherlands, has denied all such accusations. But a
top Sison aide at that time, Dr. Mario Miclat, in his seemingly autobiographical novel “Secrets of
the Eighteen Mansions” asserted and affirmed Salonga’s find.

 The possible involvement of the CPP in the bombing came up in government and military circles
on several occasions before exploding into public view in 1989. In 1972, the government captured
the minutes of a CPP military tribunal which documented the claim made by one of the members
of the party that he had carried out the bombing on instructions from Joma Sison. Rolando
Abadilla, head of Marcos military intelligence, would later claim that Central Committee member
Noli Collantes upon surrender to the government in late 1972 had testified that the party was
responsible for the bombing.

 In a video interview, National Security Adviser (NSA) Secretary Hermogenes Esperon enumerated
the crimes which the CPP-NPA has been involved in, which included the 1971 Plaza Miranda
bombing and other crimes. He said the CPP-NPA cannot deny these as their comrades confessed
the organization’s involvement in these misdeeds or violations. Esperon also said that the
members of the Communist Party of the Philippines and New People’s Army (CPP-NPA) are
‘stragglers’ whose ideology does not fit in the Philippines.

 As a former member of the CPP Politburo, Kintanar had access to inside information on the party’s
discussions and assessments of the anti-infiltration purges not just in Mindanao but also in
Southern Tagalog, Metro Manila, Northern Luzon in the 1980s. And, of course, access too to
information regarding the Plaza Miranda bombing of 1971. Back in 1972, Kintanar had been
present when Danny Cordero, an able NPA commander, made an astounding confession just
before he was executed by the party for insubordination: that he had thrown the grenades at Plaza
Miranda in 1971 and that Sison himself had ordered the bombing.
 CHAPTER III

COMPARISON AND CONTRADICTION OF THE ARGUMENTS

          As asserted on the evidence, both arguments presented that it was the CPP-NPA, who was behind the
Plaza Miranda bombing. According to Marcos, the CPP carried out the bombing to advance its design of toppling
the government and taking over political control of the country. Since Marcos had on various occasions accused
Ninoy of coddling the communists, if not being a communist himself, he, too, had a leg to stand on in his battle
with Ninoy for credibility in the eyes of the nation. By equating Ninoy with the communists and then accusing the
communists of being the perpetrators of the Plaza Miranda bombing, Marcos cleverly impressed upon the nation
that it was, in the end, Ninoy who was behind the incident. Likewise, in Ruben Guevarra’s testimony, who was
one of CPP's founding fathers, he claimed that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founding chair Jose
Ma. Sison is the mastermind in the 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing that left nine people dead and more than 100
others injured. It was a part of a series of campaigns launched by the CPP. This was part of what they called
‘Oplan Big Leap Forward’. As Guevarra said, they wanted to expose and demonize Marcos.  Also, it was
supported by Buhay Representative Lito Atienza who said that the mastermind behind the 1971 Plaza Miranda
bombing was the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) founder Jose Maria Sison, not the late strongman
Ferdinand Marcos. Atienza himself was a survivor of the Plaza Miranda bombing. He was one of the Liberal
Party’s youngest candidates for councilor then. Also, Brig. General Victor Corpus has also made statements
alleging that CPP was responsible. It was the (Communist) party leadership planned and three operatives carried
out the attack in an attempt to provoke government repression and push the country to the brink of revolution.
(Communist Party Leader) Sison had calculated that Marcos could be provoked into cracking down on his
opponents, thereby driving thousands of political activists into the underground, the former party officials said.
Recruits were urgently needed, they said, to make use of a large influx of weapons and financial aid that China
had already agreed to provide. On other instances before the Plaza Miranda bombing, Ninoy was as enthralled
as he was by the crowds of listeners with dramatic performances of Imelda – her clothes, her accessories, and
handbags and parasols; he had inflamed viewers with figures on corruption in the Marcos administration, and he
was especially appalled by the nation's exposure to the Jabida Massacre that killed al al-Massacre. This
revelation provided the background to Ninoy's disclosures that the Plaza Miranda bombing was a step towards
the full execution of Oplan Sagittarius, the Ninoy plan claimed to be a scenario for the establishment of military
rule in the world. Subsequent developments tended to bring Ninoy out of the propaganda war. Two days after the
Plaza Miranda devastation, Marcos revoked the right of the habeas corpus writ and, yes, promptly continued to
apprehend many protestors without the regular warrants. And Ninoy had a heyday condemning the revocation of
the writ as a prelude to martial law. Marcos, on the other hand, accused the Communist Party of the Philippines
of committing the massacre.  The CPP carried out the bombing to advance its strategy to overthrow the
government and take over political control of the country, according to Marcos. Since Marcos accused Ninoy of
cuddling, if not being a Communist, the Communists on numerous occasions, he too had a leg to stick up for
legitimacy in the eyes of the country in his fight with Ninoy. By comparing Ninoy with communists, Marcos smartly
impressed the country that Ninoy was the leader of the gruesome act and then suspected Communists of being
the perpetrators of the Plaza Miranda Bomb. 
         But despite the different claims and assertions, Jose Maria Sison refused this accusation. Sison and his
followers have repeatedly denied these allegations. According to him, there was no formal alliance between the
CPP-NPA and Ninoy Aquino.  There was no written instrument of alliance (document) and there was no
organizational form to embody the alliance. Sison continues to deny these claims, and the CPP has never
released any official confirmation of their culpability in the incident. Yet, as stated by Ferdinand Marcos, Ninoy
Aquino himself planned or at least was involved, in conspiracy with the communists, in the Plaza Miranda attack.
He believed that Aquino who masterminded the gruesome dastardly act. Marcos had good reasons to suspect
Aquino. The opposition leader Aquino had supported the then rag-tag New People's Army, by giving them refuge
and supplies in the vast Hacienda Luisita owned by his wife's family. Also, the only LP stalwart who wasn’t in
Plaza Miranda when the grenades were thrown was then Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. Aquino, which
believed that he was warned by Sison not to be in that rally. Moreover, in private conversations with two Emboffs
on September 12, Senator Aquino said that on Sept 7 he had met with Sison and several other members of
CPP/ML Central Committee in a house in suburban Makati. At the meeting, he was presented with a proposal to
join a broad opposition front including part of the Liberal Party, CPP/ML, and other radical groups. Besides, Sison
believed that former President Ferdinand Marcos was behind the explosion. He said that Marcos used the
bombing to justify his move to suspend the writ of habeas corpus which allowed the police to make arrests
without warrants and to detain the arrested without charges, took effect immediately but was announced to the
public only after a few days. It seems clear now that the tactic was a dress rehearsal for the full-scale imposition
of martial law the following year. However, Jovy Salonga, as one of the more prominent and heavily injured
survivors of the infamous Plaza Miranda bombing, former Senate President Jovito Salonga, recounted just before
he passed away, the public was made to believe that Marcos orchestrated the bombing to extend his stay in
power. It turned out, based on his findings and the confession of one of the bomb-throwers, that the bombing was
a pilot undertaken by the reorganized Communist Party under the leadership of Jose Ma. Sison to force Marcos’
hand to “declare martial law” which he did a year after. 
 CHAPTER IV

CONCLUSION

Plaza Miranda became especially famous for the bombing that took place here in Philippines on August
21, 1971, a year after President Marcos declared martial law. In this accident, an unknown person threw two
powerful grenades rocked the rally where the proclamation of the candidates for senator and mayor of Manila by
the Liberal Party was being held. The other grenade landed on stage almost all the candidates on stage were
injured, especially Senator Jovito Salonga, who injured one eye and ear, and Ramon Bagatsing who lost his leg.
After the bombing, it was reported that nine people were killed and almost hundred people were injured. By this
time, the conflict between Marcos and Ninoy had intensified so that their perspective positions on the incident
became the focus of the people’s attention.
In 1971, Aquino accused Marcos of ordering the bombing of the Liberal Party’s political strike in Plaza
Miranda, and Marcos laid the blame for the bombing of the Liberal Party on the communists, who were planning
to stage a revolution and the bombing incident at Plaza Miranda. Contemporary accounts estimated that ten
thousand people were in attendance. Between 9:05 and 9:10 pm three fragmentation grenades were thrown from
the audience onto the stage and two exploded and the third did not explode. The death toll was high but no one
among his fellow high- ranking comrades died. Aquino was notably absent from the rally, and as the most
important event of the Liberal Party’s entire election campaign was bombed, the leading representative of the
liberal Party was nowhere to be seen.
In August 1986, Victor Corpuz wrote a letter to Jose Lacaba claiming that he had been present when
Sison and a few other members of the Cental Committee had plotted the Plaza Miranda Bombing. Victor Corpuz
held a press conference on November 8 confirming the authenticity of his letter. The allegations received very
little press coverage, and were largely written off as either part of a promotion campaign for the new movie, or
part of the machinations of Enrile, or both.
One of the CPP Founding Fathers Ruben Guevarra stated that the bombing was only a part of a series of
campaigns launched by the CPP. This was part of the so-called “Oplan Leap Forward”. The bombing was
actually intended to expose and isolate former President Marcos from the Filipino people. In addition, Victor
Corpus also stated that Joma’s theory was, the greater the repression, the greater will be the resistance. The
more they capture activists, the more people will go underground. This was hidden and kept a secret because
there was a stringent policy that whoever talks about the CPP’s involvement in the Plaza Miranda Bombing but
time came that, while in Isabela, Danny Cordero started talking that he is trusted by Joma, and, as a matter of
fact, he was entrusted with throwing the grenade. Victor Corpuz and Eddie Ellarde is the one can tell all the truth
that President Marcos has nothing to do with the Edsa bombing.
A few year later, the Communists admitted the crime, but former Senate President Jovito Salonga, one of
the most seriously injured victims, said “Ninoy had something to with it.” Surprisingly, Ninoy Aquino did not admit
to the crime, the absence of Ninoy Aquino on that day was remarkable. Ninoy explained that he was there at a
singing engagement with Cocoy Laurel. Ninoy excuse was very superficial and was accepted by his Liberal party
members. Ninoy knew the CPP’s dark intentions that night and he did not tell his party members and many were
injured and killed. Former Senate President Jovito Salonga, recounted just before he passed away, the public
was made to believe that Marcos orchestrated the bombing to extend his stay in power. It turned out, based on
our own findings and confession of the bomb throwers, that the bombing in Plaza Miranda was actually a plot
undertaken by the reorganized Communist party under Jose Maria Sison, the Leader of the CPP-NPA, was
behind the bombing of Plaza Miranda to demonized the regime Marcos and to force Marcos hand to declare
Martial Law which he actually did a year after.
 CHAPTER V

RELEVANCE AND IMPORTANCE

Plaza Miranda is the public square bounded by Quezon Boulevard, R. Hidalgo Street and Evangelista
Street in Quiapo, Manila. It is the plaza which fronts the Minor Basilica of the Black Nazarene (Quiapo Church),
one of the main churches of the City of Manila, and is considered as the center of Quiapo as a whole.
Inaugurated in its current form by Mayor Arsenio Lacson in 1961, it is named after José Sandino y Miranda, who
served as the Philippines' Secretary of the Treasury between 1833 and 1854.
August 21 marks two important events in Martial Law history: the 1971 Plaza Miranda Bombing and the
assassination of Ninoy Aquino in 1983. Marcos have pinned the blamed on Ninoy and/or the communists on both
incidents but his diaries and intelligence reports reveal otherwise. Until now, the August 21, 1971 Plaza Miranda
bombing has yet to have a closure. Hearsays continue to fly thick. But the Plaza Miranda bombing is not a dirty
footnote in Philippine history. On the contrary, it significantly influenced the flow of political developments in the
country.  The most significant in our Philippine post-war history is on August 21, when the two historic connected
events, the Plaza Miranda bombing and the assassination of Ninoy Aquino happened, the consequences of
which make up our messy present. This said event was a major antecedent to martial rule. On August 21, 1972,
this triggered events that led to the imposition of Marcos to declare the Martial Law. The Plaza Miranda Bombing
lead to Martial Law because Marcos had a many reason to suspect Aquino. Marcos believed that Aquino was
actually involved with the communists in the Plaza Miranda Bombing.
This story of Victor Corpuz tell the story of no remorse of what they have done with Joma Sison, Ninoy
and others. They are traitors of our country. We thank the bravery of President Marcos to declare martial law
because of these growing group of communist party people. Now we realize but it is too late, President Marcos is
so much persecuted by Filipino people because of wrong media propaganda. If not of these people, because of
their greed of power and money, they are willing to destroy their country and the people. What we have here
reflects a very serious contradiction in our history. It’s only when the truth, and nothing but the truth is told that we
can be truly free. Despite of all the false heroism and ideology, it’s us Filipinos who suffers.
The 1971 Plaza Miranda Bombing was, in a way, the square’s last hurrah as the country’s foremost stage
for political discourse. The advent of mass media, which allowed candidates to reach a wide audience through
television or the radio, political rallies have been reserved for proclamations or the traditional miting de avance.
While no longer the grandest nor most prominent political forum, Plaza Miranda continues to remind Filipinos that
Philippine democracy was not only restored in 1986, but is alive and free.
These facts of Plaza Miranda incident were totally hidden in our country history. Lucky some of the
players spill the beans later when they remorse repent their participation to a failure of the movement. They
appear on different platform of social media interview personally recanting their participation. Good enough if their
recantation be part of new history of our country in the making so deeds of past incidents will warn the next.
 CHAPTER VI

IMPLICATION TO THE PHILIPPINE HISTORY

Despite the bombing in the Plaza Miranda, some of the senatorial candidates under the Liberal Party have
still chosen to win the position. The significance of this time in Philippine history is mostly associated with the
political situation. By this time in the present, people are still commemorating this tragic event in 1971, looking for
justice for those who were killed. With this being reminisced by the Filipino people, the more the chances that
people would be curious. This has led them, especially the historians, to conduct study deeply about every detail
of the said event. Since it requires such evidence, revelations of the real intentions of the politicians slowly unveil
over time. Moreover, other issues about the past have been brought up and discovered.  Every single piece of
proof became a puzzle to solve the mystery. In this case, the true mastermind has been named, yet still lacks
evidence on proving the alliance of CPP and the former senator Ninoy Aquino Jr. The 1971 Plaza Miranda
Bombing was, in a way, the square’s last hurrah as the country’s foremost stage for political discourse. With the
advent of mass media, which allowed candidates to reach a wide audience through television or the radio,
political rallies have been reserved for proclamations or the traditional miting de avance. While not the biggest or
most influential political forum, Plaza Miranda continues to remind the Filipinos that not only was the Philippine
government restored in 1986, but that it was alive and free.

Assumption of emergency powers by President Marcos

In reaction to the bombing, Marcos issued proclamation No. 889, which assumed emergency powers and
revoked the writ of habeas corpus-an act which would later be used as a prelude to the implementation of martial
law more than a year later.

 Suspending the Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus in Certain Cases

WHEREAS, on the basis of carefully evaluated information, it is definitely established that lawless elements in
the country, which are moved by common or similar ideological conviction, design and goal and enjoying the
active moral and material support of a foreign power and being guided and directed by a well-trained, determined
and ruthless group of men and taking advantage of our constitutional liberties to promote and attain their ends,
have entered into a conspiracy and have in fact joined and banded their forces together for the avowed purpose
of actually staging, undertaking and waging an armed insurrection and rebellion in order to forcible seize political
power in this country, overthrow the duly constituted government, and supplant our existing political, social,
economic and legal order with an entirely new one whose form of government, whose system of laws, whose
conception of God and religion, whose notion of individual rights and family relations, and whose political, social
and economic precepts are based on the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist teachings and beliefs;
WHEREAS, these lawless elements, acting in concert through front organizations that are seemingly innocent
and harmless, have continuously and systematically strengthened and broadened their memberships through
sustained and careful recruiting and enlistment of new adherents from among our peasantry, laborers,
professionals, intellectuals, students, and mass media personnel, and through such sustained and careful
recruitment and enlistment have succeeded in infiltrating almost every segment of our society in their ceaseless
determination to erode and weaken the political, social, economic and moral foundations of our existing
government and to influence many peasant, labor, professional, intellectual, student and mass media
organizations to commit acts of violence and depredations against our duly constituted authorities, against the
members of our law enforcement agencies, and worst of all, against the peaceful members of our society;
WHEREAS, these lawless elements have created a state of lawlessness and disorder affecting public safety and
the security of the State, the latest manifestation of which has been the dastardly attack on the Liberal Party rally
in Manila on August 21, 1971, which has resulted in the death and serious injury of scores of persons;
WHEREAS, public safety requires that immediate and effective action be taken in order to maintain peace and
order, secure the safety of the people and preserve the authority of the State;
The Radicalization of the Moderate Opposition
Historians remember that Marcos' suspension of the writing of Habeas Corpus was an incident that forced
many members of the mainstream opposition, including individuals like Edgar Jopson, to enter the ranks of the
extremists. In the wake of the bombing, Marcos had gathered all the resistance together and branded them
communists, and many of the former moderates had left the nationalist opposition to the mountain camps to
avoid the capture of Marcos' forces. Many who were disenchanted by the excesses of the Marcos administration
and wished to join the resistance after 1971 joined the ranks of the leftists simply because they formed the only
party providing vocal opposition to the Marcos administration.

Bearing on the Election

In a loss to Marcos' ruling Nationalist Party, the Liberals captured six of the eight seats contested by the
Senate, as well as the Manila mayoralty, with Congressman Ramon Bagatsing replacing the incumbent Antonio
Villegas as mayor of the country's premier city.

Proclamation of Martial Law 

As a result of increasing civil instability and the bombing of Plaza Miranda, Martial Law was imposed by
President Marcos in 1972. These developments and socio-economic shifts in the world have encouraged authors
to address the harsh social realities of their time. Concern over graft, rising unemployment, and the struggling
economy is expressed in contemporary novels. Significant among these is the "Let there be light" by Fernando
Castro, which represents the suffering that existed. A.T., too. Misola's "Cries from the Furrow" reveals the causes
of the peasant uprising and the actions of the Huks, whose revolt was orchestrated by the Communist Party as a
resistance campaign against the Japanese.
 CHAPTER VII

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