Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo
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was translated into English and Pilipino. It was openly sold in a few bookstores in Manila and during various forums that catered to activists until martial law curtailed its circulation in 1972. KM first succeeded in recruiting low-income students from San Beda’s College of Law, then expanded to other departments and eventually to its high school. Believing in the cause of “national democracy,” I joined the KM chapter of San Beda High School in August 1970. I was 14 going on 15. There were just a handful of us in the KM chapter. One of our first projects was the publication of selected excerpts from Amado Guerrero’s (aka Jose Maria Sison), “The Philippine Crisis” in our high school paper, the Cub Recorder. Apparently, the issue reached the prosecutor’s office and the whole newspaper staff of about 20 students were summoned to a lecture at the Manila City Hall on the “dangers of communism.” We dismissed the lecture and warning as mere anticommunist propaganda that had no intellectual merit. But to avoid repression, we gave another name to our local KM chapter. We called it the Bedan National Democratic Movement.
Not long after joining KM, I got a firsthand taste of state violence when our peaceful picket along Mendiola Street opposing oil price hikes was dispersed by the military. An army jeep manned by three soldiers rode right into our human barricade, shooting live bullets from a machine gun. With my heavy steel braces on my polio-stricken legs, I was left alone on the road as my comrades took refuge inside the San Beda campus. One of the soldiers in the jeep aimed his pistol at me. He was about to shoot, perhaps thinking that the crumpled manifesto in my hand was a handmade pillbox. Fortunately for me, a pillbox from a military helicopter that was encircling the area targeting the protesting students, fell near the advancing jeep, missing the students and distracting the soldier who was about to shoot me. That gave me the opportunity to slip inside the school gates. “Akala ko yari ka na! (I thought you were a goner!),” said one of the school’s private guards who had been watching everything through the grilled gates.
Policemen beat demonstrators with truncheons during a rally in front of the Philippine Congress (January 1970). (Photo from the Lopez Memorial Museum Collection)
In the two years that followed, I continued to join protest actions. But in every demonstration or protest march, I tried to anticipate any violence by positioning myself in a “safe” area or making arrangements so I could leave early when danger was imminent. I didn’t know it at the time, but this pattern of anticipating danger and preparing for different possibilities would strongly influence my behavior for the rest of my life.
The Mendiola experience underscored what I was getting into—a revolution. And it certainly was not a “dinner party.” It dawned on me that someone with a disability like myself had perhaps little chance of surviving a revolution, much less a protracted one. Like countless others, however, I saw no other path to social change, and tried to muster the courage needed to face the challenges of the day.
In November of 1970, I attended the second national congress of KM in Abelardo Hall at the University of the Philippines campus in Diliman. As congress delegates registered their presence and obtained kits, I was informed that someone had taken my slot. It initially irritated me that a kasama could do such a thing, but upon discovering who it was, I laughed. It was Nathan, who had come with Jan! Until then, it was only Jan who was known to the family as a KM radical activist. This chance meeting of brothers was not only a reunion; it also gave us an opportunity to seal a pact of secrecy—to hide our political undertakings from Dad.
Our secret did not last long. My father was suspicious and was observing our movements, especially when big rallies were announced. “I know there is a scheduled rally,” he said as the first anniversary of the FQS approached. “If any of you goes to that rally, you’d better not set foot in this house again.”
Jan went to the anniversary rally without hesitation. Nathan went too. But I hesitated. I knew that my father meant what he said, and I pondered the consequences of my active involvement. Jan and Nathan had their tuition, dormitory fees, and part of their stipends covered by their respective scholarships. Nathan had a scholarship from the insurance firm Insular Life, while Jan was a Philippine Science High School scholar. I had no resources whatsoever. If I left home, Dad would most likely forbid me to even seek refuge at the Jalbuena residence. Where would I sleep? At 15, could I fend for myself? Could a handicapped person like me live like the activists I met at the KM national headquarters2?
I had no answers to these questions. So I stayed home and missed the rally.
NOTES
1 The peso-dollar rate in 1970 was 6.44 pesos to 1 dollar.
2 The national headquarters of the Kabataang Makabayan was then located at the penthouse of a building on Quezon Boulevard.
A Christian’s Choice
7
NORMAN F. QUIMPO
WHEN THE STUDENT PROTESTS began in 1970, I was a 24-year-old assistant instructor in mathematics at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Manila University. Like many other teachers in school, I couldn’t resist straying from my usual classroom topics and discussing the “current crisis.” I had my share of leading discussion groups in classrooms or wherever else students wanted to talk, even in our apartment. I also spent time with a dozen like-minded teachers who sought to introduce nationalist concerns into the agenda of faculty meetings. We called ourselves the Malayang Guro ng Ateneo (MAGAT) or Free Teachers of Ateneo. We took upon ourselves the duty of questioning university policies we deemed reactionary. An American Jesuit was said to have branded us as the school’s “brown power” advocates.
My involvement with my co-teachers and students didn’t last for more than two semesters. The students I helped politicize (or who politicized me) soon moved on to various activist factions. At the end of the summer term 1971, our teachers’ group broke up after the school terminated the teaching contracts of two of our members. We were shocked by the dismissals. There was some furor when a member of the school’s Rank and Tenure Committee stated that the case of one of the teachers was tainted by anti-subversion politics. The protests faltered, however, soon after the new school year began. I had a feeling the members of MAGAT were dispirited and unable to pursue the nationalist agenda with the same enthusiasm as before. I thought too that the student interest in campus issues would soon peak. The students could only do so much boycotting of classes. They could then either force the school to close or to expel them. I went about my teaching duties and perceived no sign from school authorities that my own teaching contract was at risk. But I began to wonder if my energies could be better directed to concerns outside the campus.
MY REFORMIST HOPES had died with the 1969 presidential election when Marcos ran for a second term and won. That election saw the usual large-scale intimidation, vote buying, and ballot manipulation that have characterized all Philippine elections after 1945. The difference was that it happened at a crucial stage in my life—when I was at my first job and had high hopes of raising a family in a better economic and political environment. My wife, Bernie, and I had invested a lot of emotion in that election, rooting for the opposition Liberal Party (LP). We were convinced that the LP candidate, Sergio Osmeña Jr., had been cheated of victory.
Norman joined the Ateneo faculty as assistant instructor in mathematics (1967). (Photo by Freddie Ileto)
On hindsight, I think that my feelings resonated with those of large sectors of the population. They were just as disgusted as I was with the economy, the election, and another four-year term for Marcos. The disaffected included a significant number of the youth—high school, college students, and young professionals. They felt the economic pinch. They heard their parents and elders blame the Marcos administration for all the ills of the country. They deemed that changing the government through elections was a hopeless endeavor. They believed, as I did, that a system that allowed such a corrupt regime to enjoy a second term was seriously flawed and needed a radical overhaul.
The FQS brought into the open