Butch Valdes, the founder and leader of the Philippine LaRouche Society, and a courageous fighter for peace and development, died in his sleep on Dec. 29. His close friends in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world are shocked and saddened at the news.
Butch’s final “international” action, which has brought joy to hundreds or thousands of people around the world, came around the Christmas holidays when he gathered his large and multi-talented family together to record a video by four of his daughters, and one granddaughter, singing the canon Dona Nobis Pacem (Grant Us Peace), as part of the Schiller Institute campaign to introduce this classical work of art as a global theme song for the international movement to stop the current push for nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiN_mH83r_s&feature=youtu.be )
Butch was both a leading innovator within the Philippines, creating and leading several Philippine organizations aimed at defeating the control of the nation by international financial oligarchs and their Philippine assets, including the Philippine LaRouche Youth Movement (LYM), Save the Nation, Citizen National Guard, and the political party Katipunan ng Demogratikong Pilipino (KDP). He ran for office in several elections, most recently for the Senate. He served as the Under Secretary of Education during the Presidency of Joseph Estrade, who served from 1998-2001.
Butch hosted a weekly radio show every Sunday evening on a nationally and internationally broadcast station for several decades, and a several-times a week video broadcast sponsored by the KDP, co-hosted by Butch and his son Itos. LaRouche organizers from the U.S. and Europe appeared often on the broadcasts, and Lyndon LaRouche and Helga Zepp-LaRouche were interviewed by Butch, to an audience of several hundred thousand.
