One gets the feeling of déjà vu as students of the state-owned University of the Philippines prepare to hold massive protests against the country’s continued slide to dictatorship under the repressive regime of President Rodrigo Duterte.
The day after several UP students walked out of their classes to join the National Day of Walkout Against Tyranny and Dictatorship that was organized by progressive groups, Duterte threatened to kick out the protesting students and replace them with members of the lumad community from Mindanao.
Duterte lamented that UP students are frequently walking out of their classes although the government was subsidizing their studies.
It is important to note that the students were urging the people to fight the dictatorship under Duterte, carrying banners that said “No to Duterte’s Dictatorship,” “Defend Press Freedom,” “Fight Charter Change,” “Oust Duterte,” and “Uphold Civil and Political Liberties.”
The militant UP students under Stand-UP (Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights in UP) barked back at the President and told him to give up his slot in Malacanang instead.
“His statement exposes the true nature of his ‘free education’ scam: not all will benefit; instead of guaranteeing the right of every child to education, he dangles it around every time there is opposition to his fanatical dictatorship,” Kabataan Rep. Sarah Elago said.
Anakpawis Rep. Ariel Casilao also slammed Duterte’s threat as an “act of oppression” and said that the youth and students “do not answer to Duterte but to the oppressed Filipino people.”
Duterte’s using the lumads as possible replacement for the protesting UP students exposes the hypocrisy of his stand vis-à-vis the indigenous people of Mindanao. It may be recalled that during the Marawi siege, he threatened to bomb lumad schools because, he said, they were being used to teach students to rebel against the government.
The students of the state university, long the bastion of militant activism in the country, responded to Duterte’s threats with a call to arms for more massive rallies starting on Feb. 23 to, in the words of Elago, “fight Duterte’s dictatorship and his tyrannical attacks against the youth and the people.”
Last week’s walkout and protest rally mirror similar mass demonstrations held in the first three months of the year during the regime of President Marcos that eventually altered the course of the country’s history.
It all started with the UP General Strike in 1969 when various student organizations in the state university, later joined by the faculty members, walked out of their classes from January 31 to February 4 after then President Ferdinand Marcos failed to release the P9-million budget of UP. After negotiations, Malacanang and the UP management agreed to several of the students’ demands.
A year later, student activism, again led by UP students, reached a new high with the start of what is now known as the First Quarter Storm, a series of massive demonstrations that commenced on January 26, 1970 and ended with a violent dispersal of a major protest rally on Mendiola St. near Malacanang on March 17, 1970.
With the country falling into debt, the peso dropping incessantly, the prices soaring, and rumors circulating that Marcos, who had just been elected to an unprecedented second term, was setting the stage for a third term through constitutional change (sounds familiar?), militant students staged a mass protest outside Congress as Marcos was delivering his state of the Nation address (SONA) on January 26 that year.
Marcos was then apparently laying the groundwork for the declaration of martial law as his topic in that SONA was “National Discipline: The Key to Our Future” echoing what was to be the slogan of his martial law rule – “Sa Ikakaunlad ng Bayan, Disiplina ang Kailangan.”
As Marcos was getting outside of the building, somebody from the protesters’ ranks threw a cardboard coffin and papier mache of a crocodile to symbolize corruption in the government. After the demonstrators set an effigy on fire, policemen charged and dispersed them. But the protest continued elsewhere on P. Burgos Ave. until after 10 p.m.
Stung by the brutality of the dispersal, students marched again to Congress and later, chanting “Huwag Matakot, Makibaka!” marched on towards Malacanang, where they were again violently dispersed by policemen. Four students, including a classmate of mine in UP, were killed by police bullets and many others injured. The protesters commandeered a fire truck nearby and smashed it against the Malacanang gate.
The UP demonstrators were joined by students from the Philippine College of Commerce (now Polytechnic University of the Philippines) and several other schools in Manila. As the protesters retreated towards Mendiola Bridge, students from nearby dormitories and schools joined them. They occupied the historic bridge until the military dispersed the protesters after 9 p.m.
Daily protests were held in various campuses and streets culminating in another massive rally at Plaza Miranda. Six days later, on Feb. 18, protesters staged another mammoth rally in front of the US Embassy where they accused the US of imperialism and of supporting Marcos.
On Feb. 16, the students massed again at Plaza Miranda but the police and Metrocom blocked them, causing the students to proceed to the Sunken Gardens and to the US Embassy where they clashed with policemen. The students regrouped on Mendiola and to the PCC campus, which the police stormed and hit several students and professors.
On March 3, students organized a “people’s march” through Tondo, Plaza Lawton and the US Embassy where they clashed again with gun-toting policemen. On March 17, they marched again through poor communities and on to the US Embassy, where they were dispersed by policemen with tear gas, guns and batons.
Almost a year later, from Feb. 1 to 9 in 1971, the students and faculty of the University of the Philippines did the unthinkable when they barricaded the UP Campus in Diliman, Quezon City and occupied it for nine days to support the transport strike again the oil price hike and to protest military intrusion in the state university.
The violent dispersals didn’t dissuade the students from staging more demonstrations and instead, resulted in the number of militant students growing exponentially. With tens of thousands of students taking to the streets almost everyday, and hundreds joining the underground, Marcos found a reason to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and later, to declare martial law in 1972.
It is important to note that the First Quarter also played a major role in bringing down the dictatorship 14 years later. After a highly contested snap elections on Feb. 7, 1986, the people rose as one to shout “Tama na. Sobra Na” and staged the People Power Revolution that toppled Marcos and installed Corazon Aquino as the new president.
We are now witnessing a similar pattern of repression and increasing affront to democracy with the Duterte administration’s crackdown on dissent, highlighted by the jailing of fierce critic Sen Leila de Lima, the impeachment moves on Chief Justice Lourdes Sereno and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, the suspension of the deputy Ombudsman who is investigating hidden wealth charges against the President, the repeated attempt to change the Constitution, the threats against the Commission on Human Rights, and now the threat poised on militant students of the University of the Philippines.
The similarities in the events leading to the declaration of martial law by Marcos and the pattern of repression and dictatorial actions of the current president are so eerily evident to ignore. UP students are rising to the occasion again to lead the fight against tyranny and Duterte’s repressive regime is revving up its machine to curtail the students’ right to express their and the people’s grievance.
The need for vigilance has become even more paramount and the need to remind the people of the promise made on EDSA – “Never Again to Martial Law!” never more pronounced.
(valabelgas@aol.com)