By ALDRIN VILLEGAS
A naked statue of a young man with outstretched arms and open hands welcomes everyone upon entering UP Diliman. He is anonymous yet he is known to virtually everyone as “Oblê.”
Commissioned to interpret the second stanza of Dr. Jose Rizal’s “Mi Ultimo Adios,” National Artist Guillermo Tolentino said the Oblation symbolizes all unknown heroes: “In barricades embattled; fighting with delirium / Others donate you their lives without doubts, without gloom.”
The Oblation has since become a symbol of academic freedom in the national university, historically a bastion of activism, a rallying point for dissent and social criticism. Even in the country’s darkest pages of history, students of the university sought to uphold the essence of the Oblation, the selfless offering of oneself to “Serve the People.”
One of the most poignant and most celebrated examples of this tradition is the UP community’s staunch resistance against the fascism of the Marcos dictatorship, when it once barricaded campus grounds against state forces, forming what is called the Diliman Commune.
The establishment of the Commune follows a tempest of protests, where students and professors broke out of the narrow confines of the academe to struggle with the marginalized and disposed. This series of events will go down in history as the First Quarter Storm (FQS) of 1970.
“It was a glorious time, a time of terror and of wrath, but also a time for hope. The signs of change were on the horizon.”
The ferment of the FQS leading to the declaration of Martial Law saw an upsurge in the youth and student
movement. Participating firsthand in the series of widespread protests, former Faculty Regent and retired UP professor Judy Taguiwalo recalls how, as a student, she joined thousands of others in one of the momentous events in the history of the youth movement.
After graduating from Negros Occidental High School in Bacolod City, Taguiwalo entered UP at the age of 15. In 1969, she became a member of the Nationalist Corps, a committee of the student council where she and other students would integrate with workers and farmers and learn from their struggles.
She was a Sampaguita dormer during the dawn of Martial Law, where she recounts the entry of soldiers into their dorm and rooms where some of them lost their belongings after the inspections. “I remember (wo)manning the barricades in front of the Faculty Center with other students and faculty members,” she recounts in an article published by the Collegian on the 40th anniversary of the Diliman Commune.
The barricades were placed along Katipunan and University Avenue on February 2, 1970, in support of drivers on strike protesting the increase in oil prices.
Taguiwalo recounts that the demonstrations were sparked by violent incidents on the campus, where Math
Professor Inocentes Campos fired gunshots that killed Zoology major Pastor Mesina. In the afternoon, soldiers attacked Vinzons Hall and another student, Reynaldo Bello, was shot in the right arm.
“The solidarity, militancy and determination which characterized the 1971 Diliman Commune is a continuation of the patriotic and militant student activism in UP,” she said. However, the immediate precursor of the Commune were the February 1969 UP General Strike and FQS of 1970.
“A powerful storm was sweeping the land, a storm whose inexorable advance no earthly force could stop, and the name of the storm was history.”
In its February 4, 1969 issue, the Collegian reported that the failure of Marcos to release the P9-million budget of UP triggered widespread opposition in the university, leading to a five-day strike from January 31 to February 4.
Taking to the streets the strong defiance against the government, the FQS stirs up a year later beginning on January 25 and continuing up to March 1970. Veteran journalist Jose Lacaba’s account “Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage” vividly recorded the massive protest actions that ensued, the slogan “Makibaka! Huwag matakot!” reverberating in the streets of the campus and elsewhere in the metropolis.
January 26 marked the onset of FQS, as then reelected president Ferdinand Marcos delivered the State of the Nation entitled “National Discipline: The Key to Our Future” at the old legislative building, now the National Museum. As he came out of the building, cardboard coffins representing the death of democracy were hurled in his direction, and a crocodile effigy of Marcos was set ablaze. Lacaba describes Burgos Drive becoming a raging battlefield with the unprecedented display of the sadism of cops who attacked the defiant public.
FQS ended violently with the clash of police who used tear gas and arms against students who tried to counter using Molotov cocktails and pillbox bombs.
The storm has passed and the fascist dictator has been toppled, but the calamities and casualties are still the headlines of the day. No weatherman can accurately predict the coming of a storm, but the continuing state repressions render it inevitable.
“Every soul who had ever experienced poverty and oppression found himself linked to his neighbor in those hours of turmoil, welded tightly by a shared fate and a common exhilaration.”
Nearly five decades after the FQS, succeeding generations are faced with intensified coercion. “Kung tutuusin, hindi nalalayo ang kasalukuyang kalagayan ng kabataan at mamamayang Pilipino sa sitwasyong nag-anak sa FQS,” said National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP) National President Sarah Jane Elago.
Under President Benigno Aquino III’s term, the government remains a puppet of the United States with the lopsided Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that reopened US military bases in the Philippines, Elago explained.
The country is also facing the most unemployed and underemployed Filipinos in history, ballooning to 4.5
million and 7.3 million, respectively, according to think tank IBON Foundation. This is a stark contrast with the economic growth boasted by the Aquino administration.
With cases of human rights violation recording 294 extrajudicial killings and 28 victims of enforced disappearance by human rights watchdog Karapatan, the context of the country under a fascist rule remains the same 46 years hence.
“Sa gayon, hindi rin imposibleng mapasigabo ang kilusang kabataan sa unang kwarto ng taon, lalo na kung patuloy nating masasapol ang mga pinakamatitining na isyung panlipunan” Elago said.
History seems to repeat itself and it is only a matter of time until another storm will descend upon the country. As the nation is still characterized by dialectical contradictions, the youth must uphold its critical and active task in resolving these in favor of the marginalized. To remain passive is a grave transgression.
Upon entering the campus of UP Diliman, the Oblation reminds the youth of their duty to serve the people and the nation. In the front of the statue, inscribed are the lines of Padre Florentino in El Filibusterismo:
“Nasaan ang kabataang mag-aalay / Ng kanilang kasibulang buhay / Ng kanilang adhikain at sigasig / Sa kabutihan ng bansa?” ●
Published in print in the Collegian’s February 9, 2016 issue.
