Heherson Alvarez

Heherson "Sonny" Turingan Alvarez (October 26, 1939 – April 20, 2020) was a politician from the Philippines. He served as a member of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the Philippines. He was also Minister (then Secretary) of Agrarian Reform from 1986 to 1987 and Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources from 2001 to 2002.

Sonny Alvarez studied liberal arts at the University of the Philippines^[which?]. He also earned a master's degree in Economics and Public Administration from Harvard University.

Alvarez was a young activist who participated in the 1971 constitutional convention. He refused to sign the Ferdinand Marcos regime backed constitution that gave extensions to the president's term in office.

On the day when Ferdinand Marcos suddenly imposed martial, Alvarez had been at the University of the Philippines Diliman attending a public forum with Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. When his girlfriend Cecile Guidote told him that she had work to finish and could not join him for their planned dinner, he decided to stay overnight at his ConCon office to work on a speech. As a result, he was able to evade Marcos' soldiers who had succeeded in arresting most of the oppositionist ConCon delegates, including Aquino.

He went into hiding in various places for a while, but the oppositionists soon suggested that he go to the US to help gather support for their resistance against Marcos, working with Senator Raul Manglapus who had likewise escaped capture because he was overseas on a speaking engagement when martial law was declared.

With assistance from Fr. James Reuter, Alvarez and Guidote were married in a secret "Matrimonia concencia" ceremony in Cavite, with the records sealed in the church's vaults. Then with assistance from UNESCO Philippines chair Dr. Alejandro Roces, he secretly got onboard a greek ship which took him to Hong Kong, and from there, he went on to the US. His wife Cecile, founder of the Philippine Educational Theater Association managed to follow him eventually, managing to get through immigration with little more than a theater prop for a passport.

While in exile, he was one of the organizers of the Movement for a Free Philippines, which did what it could to bring the dictatorship to an end. When Ninoy Aquino was assassinated in 1983, Alvarez organized the Ninoy Aquino Movement, which lobbied for the US Government to stop supporting Marcos, despite the latter's closeness to Ronald Reagan.

While in exile, the Alvarezes had two children, Hexilon and Herxilia, which were plays on the word "exile" - a reminder of who they were and that they were meant to return to the Philippines one day.