LEANDRO “Lean” Alejandro fell victim to an assassination attempt on September 19, 1987. We met him for the last time shortly after the attempted coup d’état of August 28, and he was always so frank and open-minded that his commitment was always respected. A former student and General Secretary of the Bayan coalition of mass organizations, he was one of the leading figures of his militant generation. At twenty-seven, married with a six-month-old child, he knew he was under threat.
Rolando Olalia, president of the KMU trade union center, had been shot dead in November 1986. Bernabe Buscayno, a long-imprisoned Communist guerrilla leader who had joined the legal Partido ng Bayan since his release, narrowly escaped the worst in June 1987. Lean Alejandro was on the blacklist of Philippine “death squads”. He remained faithful to his convictions, right to the end.
Pierre Rousset