MANILA, Philippines -- This young man did not turn a blind eye to the horrors inflicted on the country while it was in the grip of martial law.
Lean Alejandro -- murdered at 27, ironically in the democratic space instituted by the Aquino administration -- did not engage in the trivial pursuits that preoccupied much of the youth in his time. Instead, he chose to fight the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos.
He took to the hustings to question the status quo and advocate change, linked arms with other protest leaders in the streets, and endured prison for several months for his boldness.
But this ?thinker-activist? image of Alejandro has slowly become obscure 20 years after his killing.
?For me, the best important thing about him that should be introduced to the new generation is that he was a very good symbol of the Filipino youth at that time,? his widow, Liddy Nacpil, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer, parent company of INQUIRER.net.
Nacpil was also an activist and one of the founders of the militant feminist group Gabriela when she and Alejandro got married at the height of protests during the ?snap? election called by Marcos in 1986.
She is now vice president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC).
They have a daughter, Rusan, who was only six months old when her father was shot dead on September 19, 1987, by still unidentified men on board a van in front of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance ) office in Quezon City.
The murder of Alejandro is among the many extrajudicial killings still unresolved to this day.
?But it is also important for people, especially the youth today, to see that what he did was not something so singular, or so unique. He was an ordinary person, too. The only difference was that he faced so many great challenges -- and he rose to the occasion,? Nacpil said.
Alejandro was among those who took to the streets to condemn the assassination of former senator Benigno ?Ninoy? Aquino on August 21, 1983. He became one of the leading lights of the Justice for Aquino, Justice for All movement.
He also led the Coalition for the Restoration of Democracy, and the Nationalist Alliance for Justice, Freedom and Democracy.
In 1985, at 25, Lean was elected the first secretary general of Bayan, then the largest nationalist and democratic front bucking the dictatorship and initiating popular campaigns.
In the May 1987 elections, he ran for congressman representing his hometown, Malabon, against Tessie Aquino-Oreta, a sister-in-law of then president Corazon Aquino, but lost.
On the eve of Alejandro?s 20th death anniversary, the FDC office in Quezon City was in a frenzied state preparing for the Tuesday night concert-exhibit -- one in a series of events launched to keep his memory alive.
A six-day photo exhibit dubbed ?Being Lean Alejandro? was mounted on September 10 at the Palma Hall of the University of the Philippines. (It was at UP that he initially took a chemistry course when he entered college in 1978. He switched to Philippine studies in his second year.)
Another photo exhibit was put up on Wednesday at the LRT Legarda Station in Manila showing Alejandro as a student leader whose eyes were opened to the social realities when he joined the short-lived Anti-Imperialist Youth Committee, and as a youth leader working with the late nationalist Jose Diokno, among others.
On Friday, when the nation commemorates the 35th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, a permanent mural of Alejandro and Macario Sakay -- the last Filipino general who founded a Tagalog Republic in opposition to US colonial rule in 1902 -- will be unveiled at the San Juan City Hall and the Ospital ng Makati.
The murals are a project of the Renato Constantino Foundation together with the Tutok Artists Group.
In San Francisco in the United States, there is also the 20-year-old mural honoring Alejandro and other activist icons that was recently refurbished by a group of artists called the Haight-Ashbury Muralists.
Nacpil recalled how she worried about Alejandro when anti-riot forces began shooting at an assembly of farmers who converged at the Mendiola (now Don Chino) Bridge on January 22, 1987.
Now known as the ?Mendiola massacre,? the shooting claimed the lives of 15 farmers.
It was the only time that she braced herself to hear bad news about her husband, Nacpil said.
?He was always at the frontline of rallies, so I was ready to hear that he had been killed,? she said. ?When he was actually killed several months later, I was totally unprepared.?
Alejandro was shot in the face inside his car, an Isuzu Gemini. He had just put down a book he was reading, by Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci, Nacpil said.
Reading was among the things he loved doing outside his political life, she said, adding: ?He wasn?t just somebody you would be in awe of, but also someone whom you can be friends with.?
The man played chess, dined out with his friends in the protest movement, and sang their baby to sleep with Sting?s ?Every Breath You Take? even if he was tone-deaf, Nacpil said with a chuckle.
He liked going to the movies, she said, his favorites being ?Star Wars? and ?The Sound of Music,? which he watched six times each.
He was fascinated with Tolkien, and loved the ?Lord of the Rings? trilogy.
?He also dreamed of retiring one day, to live a quiet life, read all the books at the UP library, and teach our daughter how to play chess. Those were our faraway dreams,? Nacpil said, her eyes brimming with tears.
?He would have really wanted to live to see these through,? she said.
