They carried paint-splattered placards and spoke through megaphones or from behind banners, their calls shouted from the foot of Mendiola Bridge to the Palace. They had strided out of their classes and swarmed the streets by the hundreds, marking the first of this year's string of protests against the dictatorship that President Rodrigo Duterte is assembling.
"UP? They always walk out," Duterte retaliated. "Do not go to school anymore. Stay on the street. Go. And I will get new ones—anyway that's people's money."
Majority of the public echoed Duterte's statement, presuming that taxpayer money is better spent on students staying in class, disengaged from public affairs and national politics. Articles online have cropped up dismissing the youth's cries for social justice as all noise and instant gratification.
These sentiments abound amid the persistence of class-based inequalities and the state's monopoly on violence, to which dissent is the only fitting response. At the frontline of this struggle stands UP, historically a bastion of activism, now tasked to reaffirm the relevance of militancy in championing the interests of the dispossessed and marginalized.
Doubts and Disquiet
A glance at the numbers may lead one to regard activism as passé. In the university, for example, only around 50 to 80 students participate in Black Friday Protests, according to the Student Alliance for the Advancement of Democratic Rights in UP (STAND UP). These protests campaigned against socialized tuition schemes and campus policies that threaten students' right to organize, among others.
Yet, sheer mob size is not the only metric to gauge the magnitude of mass actions. Rather, the power of a protest hinges on the sharpness of core beliefs that unify seemingly unrelated sectors, like the youth with the workers and peasants.
"Marami man o kaunti ang nakikilahok sa mga protesta, hindi natin iyon nakikita na hadlang para mairehistro natin ang mga panawagan ng mga estudyante kasama ang masang api para sa tunay na pagbabagong panlipunan," said Angela Bello of Anakbayan UPD. She cited the surge in youth engagement of late, such as at protests against the burial of Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, the questionable presidential policies, and the continuing human rights violations.
Also, contrary to the megaphone-wielding, chair-throwing stereotype of an activist at rallies, much of the work done by mass organizers happens outside the streets. They immerse in communities to conduct educational discussions and other sectoral works, such as teaching at schools in the countryside. Such activities may be forms of protests in themselves. In January, for instance, when Martial Law was yet to be lifted in Mindanao, Katipunan ng mga Sangguniang Mag-aaral (KASAMA) sa UP, an alliance of student councils across UP system, led a basic masses integration at a Lumad school in Compostela Valley.
"Yung mga estudyante at guro doon, pinatay sa harap nila yung mga community leaders. Halos araw-araw may harassment silang nararanasan," said Hazel Lobres, KASAMA sa UP secretary general. "Sa integration na yun naunawaan namin na kahit nakakatakot, wasto ang paglaban lalo sa ganitong klaseng pulitikal na sitwasyon."
Taking the Backseat
The present political climate demands dissidence especially among students, being the intellectual base of the youth and members of the labor force in transition. Yet, they are discouraged from protesting by an education system that insists learning is only possible within the academe.
"Kalakhan na ng mga UP students ay mula sa [upper middle class] kaya may isang bahagi na mahirap silang pukawin at organisahin," said Renz Pasigpasigan, former secretary-general of the militant youth group League of Filipino Students UPD. "Mas pinatindi ito ng neoliberalismo na tinutulak sa atin ang mahigpit na pagtingin sa sarili at sa indibidwal na kagustuhan.” Students have in turn internalized competitiveness and self-regulation as bases for relative security, he said.
Even at UP, for example, walkouts and sit-ins are sometimes sidelined in favor of schoolwork that could be missed in a day out on the streets. Though aware of national issues, some students opt to sign online petitions and air grievances on political matters through tweets and status updates. However convenient, this individual mode of action comes at the expense of organized resistance.
"Inherent in political protests is the need to overcome the collective action problem, which is the reluctance of individuals to forgo the pursuit of their personal objectives in favor of group goals," wrote political scientist Daniel Gillion of University of Pennsylvania in The Political Power of Protest.
After all, what has often been absent from classroom curricula is the emphasis that one's personal troubles in one's immediate surroundings are inseparable from the wider social ills that plague rest of the society, Gillion said.
"The best lessons come from social practice,” said Gabby Lucero, head of the Community Rights and Welfare Committee of the UPD University Student Council (USC). "Without the combined forces of the basic sectors and the youth, the struggle for democratic rights will fail," she added, referring to the many social and cultural gains won through concerted effort in the parliament of the streets.
Object Lessons
History, after all, stands witness to a deep militant practice that has proved capable of mounting massive mobilizations in alliance with other sectors and wrestling concessions from those in power.
For instance, the recent rallies in the wake of the jeepney phaseout launched in UP hark back to when students supported jeepney drivers' strike against oil price hikes in February 1971 and barricaded the campus against intervening state troops, declaring it the Diliman Commune.
"The engineering and science majors preparing fuseless molotovs or operating radio stations; the medical student braving gunfire to aid his fellow activist; the coed preparing battle rations of food, pillboxes, and gasoline bombs," reads the Collegian editorial in its February 4, 1971 issue, "by their social practice, realize that their skills are in themselves not enough—that the political education they get by using those skills against fascism is the correct summing-up of all previous learning."
As the country is wracked by ongoing crises, there emerges a more compelling need for learning institutions to provide avenues for the youth to wage principled defiance. Their discontent should fuel dissent, while their diffuse displays of frustration and disillusionment must be translated into effective social movements for genuine systemic change.
Today's youth must stand and march then, for the path of resistance cannot be taken sitting down. ●
Published in print in the Collegian’s February 23, 2018 issue.
