POPE PAUL VI, DUBBED THE ?PILGRIM POPE,? visited the Philippines in November 1970 and survived an assassination attempt upon his arrival at the Manila International Airport. Disguised as a cleric, Bolivian painter Benjamin Mendoza attacked the Pope with a knife. Vatican news said one of the bishops pushed him away, but another version of the story said President Ferdinand Marcos delivered a timely karate chop that saved the Pope?s life. Mendoza later claimed he meant no harm, that his act was merely ?symbolic,? but the knife hit its mark and would have been fatal if not for a neck brace hidden in the Pope?s robes.
In December 1972, Imelda Marcos also survived an attack from a knife-wielding man. Gunned down by presidential security, the would-be assassin?s motive will never be known.
Films in the 1970s were forgettable porn known as ?bomba.? In 1975 one of the most violent boxing matches in history was held in the Araneta Coliseum between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. It was dubbed as the ?The Thrilla in Manila.?
Beauty dominated the decade which opened with Aurora Pijuan being crowned Miss International in 1970 and closed with Melanie Marquez winning the same title in 1979. Margie Moran was crowned Miss Universe in Athens in 1973, and Manila played host to the Miss Universe Pageant in 1974. Aside from the Folk Arts Theater, other structures rose on the reclaimed Cultural Center of the Philippines Complex in response to international events: the Philippine International Convention Center, Manila Film Center, Philippine Plaza Hotel and Coconut Palace. A construction boom would change the skyline, especially in Makati, a former swampland that replaced Escolta as the nation?s commercial and business district.
Student unrest that began in the late 1960s spilled into the first years of the 1970s. Police dispersed the crowds with truncheons and tear gas and the protesters retaliated or provoked the government forces by hurling invectives, rocks and home-made explosives called pill-boxes and Molotov cocktails. A running battle on the street leading to Malacañang was called the Battle of Mendiola. Once, the students commandeered a fire truck and rammed it into one of the Palace gates, marking the first in a series of events now remembered as the First Quarter Storm. Kabataang Makabayan (KM) gained prominence over older university associations, fraternities and sororities with Greek-letter names.
Marcos began his second term as president in 1969 and was barred by the Constitution from seeking a third term in 1973. But opportunity appeared when the Constitutional Convention opened in 1971. Carlos P. Garcia, elected president of the convention, died of a heart attack and was replaced by another former president, Diosdado Macapagal. Scandal marred the drafting of a new constitution. Eduardo Quintero, a delegate from Leyte, hometown of Imelda Marcos, claimed that delegates received cash bribes to ensure that Marcos could run for a third term as president.
On Aug. 21, 1971, an explosion ripped through a Liberal Party rally in Plaza Miranda, leaving the political opposition literally in shambles. Marcos was quick to blame the communists for the attack, and reacted by suspending the writ of habeas corpus. He claimed the state was being threatened by economic and political instability, student unrest, communist insurgency in Luzon and Muslim secessionists from the South. The setting for martial law was in place.
Marcos signed Proclamation 1081 placing the Philippines under martial law on Sept. 21, 1972, but it was not implemented till two days later, following a staged ambush on the secretary of national defense whose bullet-riddled car was shown to media. There were no radio or TV broadcasts on the morning of Sept. 23, and the eerie silence was broken by a TV announcement by Marcos that martial law had been declared to preserved the Republic. Congress and media outfits were closed, opposition politicians and critics of the government from media and academe were arrested and detained in military camps. Curfew was in place at night, reducing crime and the activities of philandering husbands. A New Society, a Bagong Lipunan, was born pushing many popular programs like ?Green Revolution? and ?Balikbayan.? The first of many slogans of the period was ?Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan.?
In 1974 a Japanese straggler, Hiroo Onoda, was found hiding on Lubang Island. He did not know that Japan surrendered in 1945, ending World War II.
In 1971 a world-wide sensation followed the discovery in a Mindanao rainforest of a long-lost Stone Age people called the Tasaday, which was later exposed as a hoax.
Elections were held in 1978 for an Interim Batasang Pambansa, with a landslide win for the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) led by Imelda Marcos that won all 21 seats representing Metro Manila against the opposition Lakas ng Bayan led by Benigno ?Ninoy? Aquino who campaigned from his prison cell. Despite a noise barrage on the eve of the elections, Marcos was sworn in as prime minister and Imelda was given a Cabinet portfolio as minister of human settlements.
Such were the high and low points in Philippine history during the 1970s.
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