A Memoir of Walden Bello

BREAKTHROUGH

- ELFREN S. CRUZ

Walden Bello's Global Battlefields: My Close Encounters with Dictatorship, Capital, Empire and Love (Bughaw, Ateneo University Press, 2025) is a readable blend of personal memoir, political analysis, and global activism. It covers six decades—from his student activism years at Princeton to Latin America, his resistance to the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines, the battles against neoliberal global institutions, and his tenure in Congress. There are recurring themes of resistance, critique, love, loss, and moral clarity which stand out. Interwoven are reflections on strategy, ethics, and love—including a moving tribute to his late wife, Ko Thongsila.

The early chapters narrate Bello's ideological formation. Born into a privileged Filipino family, he studied at Princeton and was initially drawn to abstract academic pursuits. His political awakening came through contact with the turbulent politics of Latin America during the 1970s, especially the socialist experiment and subsequent military coup in Chile.

There are gripping episodes that make it read like a gripping thriller, like sneaking into the World Bank archives for damning documents linking the World Bank to the Marcos regime ("scholarly subversion," it is termed), chain-sit protests in San Francisco, street confrontations in Santiago.

Bello writes about his clandestine involvement in the anti-Marcos movement. His decision to operate underground marks a point of no return, one where personal safety is willingly sacrificed for political conviction.