A Month in Manila with Bobby

On Thursday, October 4, 1973, The New York Times announced Bobby Fischer’s imminent trip (his first since he became World Chess Champion) to Manila, hired for $20,000 by the then President of the Philippines Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos to open the ceremonies of the 1st Philippines International Chess Tournamen. As survivors recall, “The first Philippine International chess tournament in 1973 marked the true take-off of Philippine chess. President Ferdinand E. Marcos and then world champion Bobby Fischer opened the event at the Araneta coliseum before a crowd of 25,000. The full 5 hours of each round was covered by national television”. Fischer then crossed swords (for the audience’s sake) with Marcos himself and the then President of the Philippines Chess Federation Florencio Campomanes. It was at that time that Fischer first knew Eugene Torre, as he himself recalled in a telephone interview from his Japanese detention cell in the summer of 2004.
For further insights on Fischer’s holiday trip in the Philippines, see the article by Casto Abundo, entitled “A Month In Manila with Bobby Fischer”, published on the FIDE web site on Thursday, March 6, 2008.