The killing of the 157 members of our party in the previous election did have a lot of impact on our party. I would charge it to the very strong support of our constituents and the Filipino people that our party, Bayan Muna, survived the attack. Not only did we survive the attack, but we were still able to put members into our congress.
The current trend is no longer to the same extent, shall we say, as having 157 killed. Now we have some harassment cases in court. One member was killed last year. It's not the same. However, the impact of instilling fear in members and in our constituencies is still there. It does impact a lot, but maybe there are certain choices in life that you have to make. A lot of our constituents did make the choice of supporting and voting for us.
Does it impact on future members? It really does. In fact, I hope I don't sound arrogant, but I think we would have garnered more votes and more support had it not been for the various attacks on us. But I guess that's the price to pay for the continued principled position on the part of Bayan Muna to expose the atrocities committed by the military and the human rights violations.
On a personal note, I have been involved in human rights advocacy since I was in high school. As I mentioned a while ago, the Marcos government arrested us—including me, at the age of 18 years—and the four years in prison and the torture actually discouraged me. When I left prison, I was thinking that I would no longer continue, but as I mention in all my talks, the fact is that people continue to die, not just from bullets, but from poverty. That's probably the reason many Filipinos come to places like Canada, to escape the poverty, which I think should not be allowed to exist in a society.
As a personal choice, I made the choice to continue with that advocacy. Am I afraid of the possible threats against us? Of course. I don't think anybody can say that I'm brave enough to weather everything, but I guess there are certain moments in life when you have to make your choices, and I just have to go wherever this leads me.