đź“·Dante Simbulan | Kodao Productions
Philippine Military Academy (PMA) alumnus turned activist Dante V. Simbulan has died in Fairfax County, Virginia, USA on Saturday, September 13, his son Prof. Roland Simbulan announced. He was 94.
Simbulan, a Class of 1952 honors graduate of the PMA, was a World War II veteran who was assigned to fight the Hukbong Mapagpalayang Bayan of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas [Philippine Communist Party, the forerunner of the New People’s Army (NPA) of the now Communist Party of the Philippines].
He was a Captain of the Philippine Army when assigned to teach at his alma mater where he taught the likes of former Armed Forces Chief of Staff and two-time senator Rodolfo Biazon.
He was also professor to both Lt. Crispin Tagamolila and Lt. Victor Corpuz who both defected to the NPA during the Ferdinand Marcos Sr. dictatorship.
Corpuz later returned to the military after seeking pardon from the government. Tagamolila however died in Isabela province as a revolutionary martyr.
It was Simbulan who invited CPP founder Jose Maria Sison to deliver a lecture at the academy entitled “The mercenary tradition of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.”
As PMA instructor, Simbulan was regarded as an influential voice of social conscience for a generation of cadets.
Due to his growing disillusionment with the military under the Ferdinand Marcos Sr. dictatorship, Simbulan resigned his commission as a Colonel in the early days of martial law.
He was later jailed without charges for three years in both Camp Bonifacio and Camp Crame from 1974, prompting him to seek asylum in the United States after his release.
He joined Philippine Navy Captain Danilo Vizmanos who were among the military officers jailed by the dictatorship.
In a 2022 message marking the 50th anniversary of the imposition of martial law, Simbulan said: “I would not like anyone to experience the horrors of Martial Law that I and tens of thousands of our compatriots were subjected to by a tyrannical dictator and his military and police minions.”
In his 2016 book “Whose Side Are We On? Memoirs of a PMAer” Simbulan explained his reasons for siding with the oppressed Filipino masses against the abuses of the AFP and the government.
As an exile, Simbulan was an active voice against the excesses of the dictatorship, contributing to the movement that eventually deposed Marcos Sr. and his family in 1986.
Simbulan’s son Dante Jr. said his father helped in the international campaign for human rights as executive director of the Church Coalition on Human Rights in the Philippines.
He was also one of the founding convenors of Malaya USA at the start of the Rodrigo Duterte regime.
Simbulan authored other books such as “The Modern Principilia: The Historical Evolution of the Philippine Ruling Oligarchy” published in 2005 and “When The Rains Come, Will Not The Grass Grow Again? (The Socialist Movement in the Philippines: 1920-1960)” published in 2018.
Sison described Simbulan as an excellent and captivating writer.
In her tribute on Facebook, Prof. Judy Taguiwalo said Simbulan was a nationalist people’s soldier and scholar.
He remained an activist until his last breath. | via Kodao Productions
This article was originally published in Kodao Productions.
