Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo

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СКАЧАТЬ to political activism that seemed to have broad appeal among Ateneans was a “Filipinization” movement promoted by the student council and other student organizations. They demanded that American Jesuits turn over policymaking posts they still held to Filipino Jesuits and lay personnel. Filipinization sounded parochial and out of date to me, harking back to the 1870s when Filipino nationalists were demanding autonomy, not yet full independence, from Spanish rule.

      Politically awakened by the First Quarter Storm, I wanted to deepen my politicization. I also wanted to help promote political consciousness and social involvement, particularly among my fellow students, to expose them to the different currents of the movement for social change—moderate, radical, revolutionary, etc. Unlike the few radicals on campus, I still entertained the hope of politicizing an appreciable number of Ateneans, especially among the scholarship students like myself, who were from poor or lower-middle-income families.

      The best vehicle for politicization still seemed to be the student council. If it did not seem as activist as I had expected, perhaps I could help change that. I decided to run for one of the three council seats for freshman representative.

      UNLIKE THE ELECTIONS for most positions on the council, which were held in the last few weeks of the school year, elections for freshman representatives were held at the start of the school year. Running on a platform of promoting social and political involvement and students’ rights, I had my first taste of Ateneo campus elections. I campaigned hard, with only a vague idea of my chances of winning. Some candidates came from Ateneo High School and had the advantage of being known to most freshmen. What I had going for me was that I had helped start a campaign against “initiation rites” (a euphemism for bullying) which freshmen had been subjected to. With the help of my dorm mates and former schoolmates from San Beda, I barely made it, winning the third and last seat.

      On the student council, I soon found out that, like me, many of those elected the previous school year had run on a platform of working for greater social and political awareness among Ateneans. The difference was that their advocacy for political involvement had come under the banner of Filipinization. In discussions with them and other politically involved upperclassmen, I learned that the Filipinization movement had a longer history and broader goals than I had earlier thought.

      The opening salvo had been fired in 1968 when five Ateneo student leaders published a manifesto titled “Down from the Hill” in the Guidon, in which they called attention to the “revolutionary” situation in the Philippines and the need to radically restructure the unjust social, political, and economic order. They criticized Ateneo and the Jesuits for serving the oppressive power elite and for providing a Westernized education irrelevant to the country. They called for Filipinization, which to them was simply “making things relevant to the Philippine situation.” They urged not only that university policy be determined entirely by Filipino Jesuits and laymen but also that the university curriculum be drastically reoriented to encourage identification with the masses and greater responsiveness to the country’s needs.

      Since the 1968 manifesto, important gains in Filipinization had been made: replacing American with Filipino Jesuits in key positions, such as the rector-president and the dean of arts and sciences; instituting a philosophy course in Filipino; establishing a Philippine Studies Program; and shifting the Guidon from English to Filipino. At the end of the previous school year, newly elected student council president Roger (Brick) Reyes submitted a new manifesto to the Academic Council, the college’s highest policymaking body, recommending changes in the curriculum and administration, such as a required course in Filipino, encouragement for social action projects, the hiring of nationalist professors, and procurement by the library of leftist books. The manifesto had the support not only of the student council but also of the Guidon, virtually all the traditional student organizations, and all the activist groups.

      Had I been too hasty in thinking that Ateneo was detached from the nationalist ferment sweeping the country? The Filipinization initiatives attracted me, but within a few weeks of being on the council, I felt frustrated again. The council and other groups launched a Linggo ng Himagsikan (Week of the Revolution), with an exhibition and lectures by noted nationalist writers. Few Ateneans attended. Some activist groups agitated for a boycott of classes on the final day of the Linggo, but the dean of students, Rafael Chee Kee, stepped in to prevent them from disrupting classes. Somewhat progressive in his political outlook, Dean Chee Kee actually sympathized with student activists. He enforced university rules to the extent he had to, though he later proved too softhearted to really crack down.

      The Academic Council was to meet on the Filipinization manifesto, and the student council announced a picket to demand that American Jesuits on the Academic Council, the most vocal opponents of Filipinization, recuse themselves. Instead, the administration canceled the meeting. The student council called for a boycott as a result, but few students responded.

      The student council turned its attention to arousing student interest in the Constitutional Convention or Con-Con, as the election of delegates was imminent. With the student council of St. Theresa’s College, an exclusive girls’ school, they planned a mock Con-Con, with students of each school electing student delegates. Most of the council members were enthusiastic, but it was a turn-off for me. I no longer believed that the Con-Con could bring about substantial social reform.

      Nathan (second right) takes a break with other high school student leaders during a recruitment seminar at the Ateneo de Manila University (1969).

      This council project impressed on me the fact that all the key figures on the council were political moderates, and the others, who were largely apolitical, followed their lead. Though I got along well with everyone on the council, I felt powerless to change the situation. I had little influence as a freshman, a newcomer and the only radical member—and one with only a small support base among students. Inhibited from proposing my own ideas for politicization or Filipinization, I became increasingly alienated from the council with its moderate politics and lackluster performance.

      In the other student clubs I joined, nothing much happened, as I had feared. The exception was Heights, the literary journal, which was dominated by left-wing writers. Still, not having the confidence to contribute literary pieces, I could only attend to technical matters at the journal. The other traditional school organizations, other than the sports clubs, held few meetings and were largely inactive.

      I WAS DRAWN by default to radical student activism. I avidly read leftist leaflets and publications distributed by radical militants. Some of them made favorable, occasionally glowing comments about the outlawed CPP and its guerrilla force, the NPA. A few times I got hold of copies of Ang Bayan (The People), the mimeographed CPP newspaper with a hammer, sickle, and rifle depicted on its logo. This was the first time I had ever seen pro-CPP literature. I had been taught that communism was totalitarian, godless, evil, and subversive, but exposure to unconventional thinking in high school had made me more open-minded and curious about what the radicals and the CPP had to say. Slowly, I absorbed some of what I read. In lively discussions with my dorm mates about politics, I found myself defending radical positions.

      Without my parents’ permission, I joined mass actions of radical groups in downtown Manila, where I sometimes bumped into Jan and his friends. I had to cut classes sometimes to do so. But months of virtually nonstop protest rallies, often marred by violence and little resulting political change, made me begin to doubt the efficacy of limited violence. The radicals were probably right that oppression and injustice were so deeply rooted that only a violent revolution could succeed in eradicating them.

      I had to join an activist organization. The main radical group at the Ateneo, LDA, struck me at that time as lacking national scope or stature. Kabataang Makabayan (KM), the most militant organization of all, appealed to me, but so did Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataang Pilipino (MPKP), which appeared to СКАЧАТЬ