Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo
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us go and all charges were later dropped.
We may have been among the first political activists apprehended after the writ suspension. During this period, scores of activists were rounded up, mostly in military raids on the headquarters of activist organizations. We were lucky to have been released from detention quickly. Of course, the four of us were just ordinary activists, not leaders of national organizations, and not on the military’s “wanted” list. But many other ordinary activists picked up spent days or weeks in jail. The well-known personalities caught in the military’s net, such as KM secretary-general Luzvimindo David and Movement for a Democratic Philippines spokesman Gary Olivar, suffered much worse fates—months and months in detention. We got off lightly, though there was more fallout to come.
THOUGH THE ATENEO workers tried to continue their strike, the writ suspension eventually proved disastrous. We had counted on the total disruption of classes, but with reports of military raids and the arrest of activists, apprehension and uncertainty spread among the strikers and their supporters and the numbers on the picket dwindled. Funds collected for the strike were reduced to a trickle. The strike was losing its force.
The workers ended their strike on September 1. In the return-to-work agreement, the Ateneo administration agreed to reinstate one of the dismissed workers and submit to voluntary arbitration on a wage increase. They also agreed to release the workers’ union and life insurance dues but without formally recognizing the workers’ union and its affiliation with KASAMA. The workers and their supporters tried to put on a cheerful face, but we all knew that the nine-day strike had accomplished little, much less than we had confidently expected at the start.
IN PROTEST OVER the writ suspension and the heightening repression, a new nationwide coalition headed by Senator Diokno was formed. The Movement of Concerned Citizens for Civil Liberties (MCCCL) consisted of a very broad array of groups and personalities—moderate and radical activist groups of youth and students, workers’ federations, peasant organizations, urban poor associations, women’s groups, organizations of teachers, artists, lawyers and other professionals, religious groups and personalities, civil libertarians, progressive Con-Con delegates, and a few politicians. For the first time, NatDem and SocDem groups, as well as groups aligned with the pro-Soviet PKP, got together under a single umbrella. The MCCCL staged rally upon rally, calling for the lifting of the writ suspension and the release of all political prisoners and vowing to resist any plan of Marcos to impose martial law. Meanwhile, at the Con-Con, 22 delegates filed a resolution prohibiting the extension of the President’s term. Marcos castigated the move as being “personally motivated by hate and self-interest.”
The Sanggunian vigorously supported the MCCCL. It invited two progressive Con-Con delegates, Voltaire Garcia and Romeo Capulong, to explain the implications of the writ suspension to students. It mobilized 300 Ateneo students for MCCCL’s 50,000-strong People’s Congress for Civil Liberties on September 13 at Plaza Miranda. The MKA appealed to all the sectors of the Ateneo community—students, teachers, workers, and the administration—to put aside differences and unite against “the wave of fascism led by the U.S.-Marcos alliance.” The Sanggunian sponsored a rally for all sectors of the university, with Con-Con delegates Jose Mari Velez and Fr. Pacifico Ortiz (former rector-president of the Ateneo), faculty member Dr. Lumbera, and several student leaders as speakers.
A subsequent MCCCL protest march from Manila to Caloocan City on October 6 drew only 40 Ateneans, but it proved memorable to me. A rumor had spread that the mayor of Caloocan was sending out his armed goons to forcibly disperse the marchers, as he had done with two previous rallies. Despite this and the heavy rain, the march proceeded. At the forefront were Senator Diokno, Con-Con delegates Voltaire Garcia and Heherson Alvarez, and newspapermen Joaquin (Chino) Roces and Amando Doronila. Twice, a phalanx of armed men blocked our way, but we detoured. After walking a dozen or so kilometers braving the rain and strong winds, we entered Caloocan. The goons were gone.
While the other marchers chanted triumphantly and some practically danced on the street, I shivered under my raincoat. I had never felt so wet, cold, and tense. We had made great strides at the Ateneo, and here we were, still marching, but the forces of repression were closing in.
NOTES
1 In its literature in Filipino, the CPP also uses the initials PKP, but to avoid confusion it will be referred to here only as the CPP.
2 Since the fall of Marcos in 1986, a growing number of credible accounts have indicated that the Plaza Miranda bombing was perpetrated by leading CPP figures, principally party chairman Jose Maria Sison. Prominent among these accounts are those of former CPP Central Committee member Victor Corpus, bombing victim Sen. Jovito Salonga, American journalist Gregg Jones (Red Revolution: Inside the Philippine Guerrilla Movement, Westview Press, 1989), and UP Asian Center dean Mario Miclat (the novel Secrets of the Eighteen Mansions, Anvil Publishing, 2010). According to them, Sison and company plotted the bombing, convinced that it would exacerbate the conflicts within the ruling class and hasten the victory of the communist revolution. After the Corpus and Jones revelations, I asked some kasama in the CPP Central Committee about the Plaza Miranda bombing, and they confirmed to me that the two writers’ accounts were on the whole accurate. I eventually became convinced that the brains behind the bombing had indeed not been Marcos but Sison, though Sison has continued to deny this.
Fallout at Cervini
9
NATHAN GILBERT QUIMPO
DAD AND MOM were getting very worried. More and more, their children were becoming involved in political activism. With Caren and Lillian, it was not so bad. Dad and Mom knew that they were with SUCCOR, moderate activists who were not the type to carry pillboxes and do battle with the police. Nonetheless, they fretted that during demonstrations the extremist elements might infiltrate their ranks and provoke violence. Much more disquieting for Dad and Mom were the four boys who were being drawn into radical activism: first Jan, then Norman, and, around August 1970, Ryan and me. Ryan and I tried to be discreet, but neither of us could really keep our involvement a secret. At home, Ryan was always under the watchful eyes of Dad and Mom. Although I was staying at Ateneo’s Cervini Hall, I simply could not tell a lie when Dad would ask me directly if I had been to a rally, though I could keep the details from them.
Student leaders from different schools, meeting at the National Press Club, announce plans for an indignation rally to protest the killing of Philippine Science High School student Francis Sontillano. Jan is second from the right (December 5, 1970). (Photo from the Lopez Memorial Museum Collection)
Although Dad and Mom were not too happy about Norman’s involvement, they did not try to stop him. As far as they were concerned, Norman had finished college, had a job, and they were no longer responsible for him. But with Jan, Ryan, and me, it was different. Since the three of us were still in school, Dad and Mom felt responsible for us. They tried several times to dissuade us from becoming more deeply involved in activism, to no avail.
Like Jan, I went to rallies without asking Dad’s or Mom’s permission or informing them afterwards. Unlike Jan, I had managed to steer clear of heated arguments with Dad. But I knew that a confrontation on the issue, sooner or later, could not be avoided. Ryan could not go to rallies as often as he wanted due to his physical handicap.
In early December 1970, Dad and Mom were alarmed when they learned that Jan had attended a rally that was marked by violence. Student activists from all over Metro Manila were holding a series of protests against blacklistings and expulsions from schools of some in their ranks. At a rally in downtown Manila, a security guard of the private, nonsectarian Feati University lobbed pillboxes from the roof of Feati’s main building as student activists marched by. A 15-year-old activist, Francis Sontillano, a schoolmate of Jan at the Philippine Science High School (PSHS), was hit on the head and killed instantly. Jan was a few meters from Francis. He saw the grisly sight, and shreds of skin and brain stuck to his shirt. The headlines on TV about a PSHS student being killed during a rally shocked Dad and Mom. They immediately tried to contact Jan by phone but couldn’t reach him. The next day, I