Ed Garcia


Edmundo "Ed" Guidote Garcia is a Filipino human rights activist, peace advocate, and writer. He served as researcher at the international secretariat of Amnesty International and is a member of the board of trustees of its local chapter. Garcia served as peace envoy and policy adviser at International Alert, a non-governmental peace-building organization working in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Europe.
Garcia served as one of the framers of the 1987 Philippine Constitution and advocated for the inclusion of human rights and social justice provisions in the charter. In 1970, he co-founded the militant youth political movement Lakasdiwa . The movement and its distinct political ideology sought to create a nonviolent path towards social change—an alternative to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front which called for armed struggle—drawing from diverse sources such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Liberation Theology.

Early life

Garcia studied at the Ateneo de Manila University. Among his professors were the Filipino Jesuit Horacio de la Costa. A seminarist, he finished his degree in philosophy at the Loyola House of Studies/School of Theology. His postgraduate studies came at Universidad Javeriana in Bogota, Universidad Catolica in Lima, and Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico in Mexico City.

Career

He taught at Colegio de Mexico in the 1970s and regularly lectured at Escola de Pau at Universitat de Barcelona and at the Erasmus Program on Human Rights, Migration, and Development at University of Bologna. Garcia taught political science at University of the Philippines and Latin American Studies at Ateneo de Manila University. Garcia currently serves as consultant for the formation of scholar-athletes at Far Eastern University. He has written several opinion pieces published in the online news website Rappler.

Political involvement

In 1970, Garcia co-founded the militant youth political movement Lakasdiwa ', a nationalist and social democratic group. The movement and its distinct political ideology sought to create a nonviolent path towards social change—an alternative to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines and the National Democratic Front which called for armed struggle—drawing from diverse sources such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Liberation Theology. Among Marxists and more radical formations, the group was derided as being moderate and bourgeois, often dismissed as "clerico-fascists," alluding to its close ties to the Roman Catholic Church. Later, Garcia was a member of Kaakbay, a political movement against the Marcos dictatorship led by imprisoned Senator Jose W. Diokno.
After the 1986 People Power Revolution where the Marcos regime was deposed, Garcia was appointed by the Aquino government as a representative in the 1986 Constitutional Commission tasked to create a "Freedom Constitution." He served as one of the framers of the 1987 Philippine Constitution and together with youth representative Chito Gascon advocated for the inclusion of human rights and social justice provisions in the charter.
Garcia later helped establish the Kilusan Laban sa Kudeta ' in 1989 during the turbulent Aquino years and participated in the Coalition for Peace in 1986, the Gaston Z. Ortigas Peace Institute in 1989, and the Multi-Sectoral Peace Advocates and the National Peace Conference in 1990.

Recognition

In 2015, Garcia was conferred the Parangal Lingkod Sambayanan, a public service award by the Ateneo de Manila University.

Published Works