Satur Ocampo - Activist, Journalist, and outstanding Congressman

Posted by Pahayag ng Mogrante
Rome, Italy 11/04/2014

Ka Satur during his visit to Rome September-October 2013 with the author (Photo: Pahayag ng Migrante)

Satur Ocampo was born in Sta. Rita, Pampanga to a family of landless tenant farmers. He graduated from elementary and high school at the Sta. Rita institute in 1952 and 1956 respectively. After studying at the Philippine College of Commerce (now Polytechnic University of the Philippines or PUP), Manuel L. Quezon University and Lyceum of the Philippines, by 1963 he was working as a full-time business journalist for the Manila Times. He was a vice president of the National Press Club (NPC) from 1970 to 1972.

Ocampo was involved in politics from an early age. In 1964, he was a founding member of the student-youth organization Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth). Soon thereafter in 1967-1968, he was on the National Council of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN).

President Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law on Sept. 21, 1972 and Ocampo, like many others, was forced to go into hiding. In 1973, Ocampo co-founded the National Democratic Front, seeking to unite various anti-dictatorship forces.

In 1976, he was arrested and incarcerated as a political prisoner. For the next 9 years he was severely tortured in various prison camps. Though tried by a military court for rebellion, he was never found guilty. In 1985, while on pass to vote at the National Press Club annual elections, he escaped from the soldiers guarding him and rejoined the underground revolutionary movement.

After the dictatorship fell in 1986, and President Corazon Aquino called for peace talks and Ocampo headed the NDF peace negotiating  panel. When the talks collapsed due to the killing of 18 farmers at a rally near the Malacañang Palace on January 22, 1987, Ocampo returned to the underground.

In 1989, he was arrested again along with his wife, Carolina Malay. He was freed three years later, in 1992, a year after his wife was released. Neither of them were found guilty of any crime. He wrote columns for the Philippines and Features, Diaro Uno, Pinoy Gazette and Sunstar Manila in the 1990's.

On September 25, 1999, major people’s organizations of the Philippines met to form a new political party including, most notably, Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN). The new party was calledBayan Muna or "People First". As the first president of the party, he was the party’s leading nominee in its first foray into electoral politics in the May 14, 2001 party-list Philippine election.

Bayan Muna topped the party-list race with an unprecedented 11.7% of the votes cast, earning it more than the required number of votes for three party-list seats in Congress. Their efforts led to tangible results as two Bayan Muna-sponsored bills, the Overseas Voting Act and Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, were enacted into law. Ocampo spearheaded the formation of an alliance, Legislators Against War (LAW), to oppose U.S. aggression in Iraq and worldwide. To protect Philippine industry and agriculture he helped form the Legislators-Businessmen-People’s Forum (LBPF), mitigating the destructive impacts of globalization.

Ocampo was reelected president of Bayan Muna in its third national convention last January 13, 2004 and headed the party’s nominees for party list representatives in the May 10, 2004 elections where Bayan Muna garnered 10.8% of the votes cast, again securing three seats in Congress.

Ocampo currently chairs the House Special Committee on Peace, Unity and Reconciliation. He is also vice chairman of the Human Rights Committee and member of several other committees, such as Appropriations, National Defense, Health, Foreign Affairs, Public Information, Suffrage and Electoral Reforms and is now a practicing journalist with Sun Start on his column At Ground Level.