On Nov. 18, 2024, banners flew over a sea of around 300 students, stallholders, faculty, and staff as they stormed the grounds of DiliMall at the ribbon-cutting of Robinsons Easymart.

Underlying the organizational scaffolding to mobilize such a demonstration are smaller, sustained actions. But campaigners did so beset by organizational limitations, possibly explaining the seemingly dwarfing numbers in recent protests compared to several years ago.

Conditions for organizing, after all, are different too: UP is afflicted by a decline in student participation, exacerbated by vacancies in the University Student Council. However, the furor over DiliMall retreads old themes: land use, corporate entry, and the displacement of sectors—and past campaigns may still offer lessons to fight DiliMall today.

Countering Corporate Entry

Rolando Delos Reyes of UP Multisectoral Alliance (MSA) recalled how the alliance quietly began meeting and talking to stallholders only shortly after the UP administration started seeking prospective operators for what would become DiliMall in 2021. 

Stallholders also sought help from the USC in November 2023, according to USC Councilor Kristian Mendoza. UP Not For Sale (NFS) was eventually formed in March 2024 from a multisectoral base, including stallholders and some member organizations of MSA.

Albeit separately, both MSA and NFS targeted classrooms and organizations at their tambayans for educational discussions, all the while posting flyers and sending email blasts. However, vacancies still marked the USC at the time—fresh from a special election that featured competing candidates from the MSA and NFS membership, among others. 

While MSA had postering and room-to-room plans before the Nov. 18 mobilization, sparse manpower denied the alliance thorough time to canvass classrooms and especially tambayans, according to MSA member Aimee Ramos. Despite experimenting with more volunteer-centric models, manpower dilemmas also afflicted NFS, with the pool of dedicated members remaining small, according to Mendoza. 

Although formations asserted entry into the mall grounds and extracted concessions, including the formation of a technical working group, stores such as Potato Corner and Shakey’s Pizza are now open—without the direct action of contestation displayed during the opening of Robinsons Easymart.

While DiliMall seemingly stands inevitable, the past supplies a multitude of tactics and strategies for the continuation of the struggle.

Rich Histories

DiliMall took place under the auspices of the 2014 UP Master Development Plan, which explicitly promoted commercial ventures on campus. This mirrored UP President Emil Javier‘s 1994 proposals to use UP’s “idle land,” with an offshoot being the Commonwealth Property Development Plan. It sought to transform property across Commonwealth Avenue into a “science and technology park,” now Ayala TechnoHub, managed by corporate bidders.

As soon as the Board of Regents approved the CPDP on Sept. 26, 1996, a nascent party alliance called STAND-UP sprang into action. Former student organizers like Kristina Conti, secretary general of National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers-National Capital Region, and Sarah Raymundo, assistant professor at the Center for International Studies, still remember the demands of campaigning.

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, Raymundo and the late Ericson Acosta would check matrices of class schedules and fan out into the lecture rooms, knocking and pleading with even the most stubborn professors. Org tambayans were a priority, and they sustained it in the afternoon by barnstorming the dorms. 

Manpower was at first small, as STAND was still a party under construction and composed of a few formations that split off from SAMASA (which would later evolve to UP ALYANSA). Yet it is also precisely their successful campaigning that broadened their base. Many of STAND’s candidates in the succeeding slate came from the initial campaign against the Commonwealth development plan, according to Raymundo.

Conti outlined similar tactics campaigners utilized in the early 2000s, when she entered UP: making repeat visits over a week, deepening spiels and inviting students on their second rounds of discussions. 

Moreover, unities and alliance work were also necessary, said Conti and Raymundo. Despite STAND’s differences with the SAMASA, both stood together during the TechnoHub fight. The 1998-1999 USC voted unanimously against “commercialization of education” and “commercialization of private assets.” 

Budget cuts also continually threatened, justifying UP’s bid to find funding from other sources, sometimes private entities, driving ventures such as TechnoHub. Nevertheless, unities built by the time of proposed budget cuts under Benigno Aquino III saw then-UP President himself marching with the community.

Conti outlined sustained efforts to reach out to deans and Chancellor Caesar Saloma during that period. “Because of the intense support, it was impossible for President Pascual to overlook the issue,” she said.

Endless rounds of persuasion and follow-ups with deans, UP Diliman Chancellor Caesar Saloma, and UP President Alfredo Pascual allowed administration support versus budget cuts. (Kristina Conti/Facebook)

Conti was surprised by the numbers opposing formations and traditional organizations could organize—most volunteers versus the Commonwealth development plan were ordinary students, not dedicated activists. 2011’s UP Strikes Back campaign against the Aquino budget cuts saw 2,000 Diliman students marching 10 km from Commonwealth to Mendiola to join a contingent of around 5,000 strong.

The campaign was victorious, as Aquino that year instead raised the 2012 budget for state universities and colleges by P2.4 billion. Meanwhile, while intense opposition to Technohub only delayed the project, with the venture finally opening in August 2008 amid the arrests of seven protestors, experience gained from the struggle allows present campaigners to draw lessons.

A Protracted Struggle

While similarities exist between now and then, differences lie in a UP now populated mostly by graduates of private and science high schools, isolated from each other over the pandemic years. UP Town Center and Gyud Food also emerged, further cornering sectors into accepting and suffering from the status quo.

At the same time, changing times bring new opportunities. “Lakad-lakad at hatak ng mga tao para makasama versus now, na yung mga releases natin spread like wildfire,” said Mendoza.

While campaigns’ proportions now may seem modest compared to mobilizations of times past against the Commonwealth development plan and budget cuts, new tools of resistance online arise. A TikTok coverage of resistance to DiliMall reached 100,000 plays as of February.

However, online engagement often fails to elicit sustained mobilization. Continued face-to-face visits remain key as such tactics allowed contra-Commonwealth development plan campaigners to persuade even ordinary students to resist. Organizers must draw parallels between students’ struggles and those of basic sectors, said Conti and Raymundo.

To successfully carry out such persuasion, student organizers must work to regain the trust of a studentry alienated by controversies within their leading organizations or who are not yet drawn by campaigns to the point of participation. Since STAND UP came under fire for mishandling sexual harassment cases, the party-alliance has not fielded candidates since the 2023 election, while other parties maintained limited presences attempting to rebuild. 

Ultimately, and only by accounting for changed conditions, student groups can unite with sectors to oppose DiliMall and protract a fight until they can gain enough to win. ●