Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ THE END of summer classes, the Sanggunian, radical activists, and some moderate groups resolved to call for a general and indefinite boycott of classes beginning on July 9, the first day of the semester. We tried to keep the decision under wraps, but our feverish activity could not hide the fact that something was afoot. A few days before July 9, the officers of the alumni association, who usually did not involve themselves in student affairs, requested a meeting with the Sanggunian to discuss controversies on campus. After hearing us out, they urged dialogue with the administration before any drastic action was taken. But they were too late.

      Early on July 9, we set up a picket in front of Gate 3 to announce the boycott. On campus, the first issue of Pandayan (a Filipino term meaning “anvil” and the new name of the Guidon) was distributed, carrying as its headline story the Simbulan–de Guzman case. At around 10 o’clock in the morning, the Sanggunian set up a microphone in the college quad and called upon students to boycott classes until the administration reinstated Simbulan and de Guzman. With calls of “Boycott! Boycott!” Sanggunian members and activist leaders, myself included, took turns lambasting the administration. Apart from the Simbulan–de Guzman dismissal, other student complaints, such as the increase in tuition and the lack of progress in Filipinization, were voiced. Activists fanned out to different classrooms to appeal to wavering students to heed the boycott. Within less than an hour, however, it became apparent that the boycott wasn’t holding—over half of the students were in class. The boycott fizzled out.

      Ateneans then got a taste of how tough Father Cruz would be. The next day, the parents of seven student leaders received telegrams asking them to come for a talk regarding the possible expulsion of their sons. The seven were leading members of the Sanggunian, including its president Alex Aquino, vice-president Mario Jalandoni, senior council chairman and SDK activist Jonathan (Jonat) de la Cruz and junior representative Brigido (Jun) Simon Jr., Pandayan editor Manolet Dayrit, Nationalist Corps chairman and leading KM activist Bill Begg, and SDK militant Michael (Mike) Molina. They were charged with “preventing or threatening students or faculty members from discharging duties or attending classes.” Through a stroke of luck, I was not included among them. The bell for the class break had rung when it was my turn to take the microphone, so technically I did not disrupt classes.

      “The original act of injustice is now being compounded with new acts of injustice. And so I must speak.” Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera, the highly respected chairman of the Philippine Studies Program and a member of the committee on rank and tenure, addressed these words to a packed convocation of students and teachers in the cafeteria. Breaking the seal of secrecy of the committee, he revealed that they had not recommended terminating the contracts of Simbulan and de Guzman. They had indeed denied Simbulan tenure, and his political views had figured prominently in this decision. In being dismissed, however, the two had been “victims of Father Araneta’s undue haste in dispensing with their services.” Himself a MAGAT member, Lumbera was convinced that the dismissals had been due to their leftist political views. He charged, “There seem to be elements in the academic community who are reluctant to declare themselves openly against the national democratic movement, but are ready to lend a hidden hand in counteracting it.”

      The next day, the Sanggunian called for another boycott of classes, adding the harassment of student leaders to its list of issues. The atmosphere was tense and somewhat intimidating, as the prospect of further disciplinary actions for disrupting classes hung in the air. Relatively few students boycotted, but those who did were highly fired up. After an overcharged teach-in in the main corridor, we burned the effigies of Father Araneta and Father Cruz in the quad. Then about a hundred students marched toward the administration building shouting, “Ibagsak ang kleriko-pasismo! (Down with clerico-fascism!)” Pillboxes exploded nearby. We bounded up the stairs of the building to demand an audience with Father Araneta. The glass doors were locked. Those in front pounded on the doors with their fists until the glass shattered, pieces falling around us. Startled, we retreated back down the stairs and hastily dispersed. It dawned on me a few minutes later, safely away from the scene, that, without planning to, we could have occupied the building and barged into Father Araneta’s office. Instead, our protest lay in shards.

      THE ADMINISTRATION HELD firm. Simbulan and de Guzman were not reinstated, and disciplinary proceedings went ahead against the seven student leaders. Moreover, the administration banned convocations in the cafeteria, confining them to the quad or the out-of-the-way fourth-floor auditorium. It was clear to me that the Araneta-Cruz tandem was grimly determined to stamp out radical activism on campus. Students seldom saw either of them on the college grounds. They entrusted much of the work of maintaining order to the new dean of students, Hilarion Vergara. Vergara was a contrast to the youthful and hefty previous dean, Rafael Chee Kee. He was elderly, bespectacled, and deceptively frail-looking, and he had earned a reputation as a stern prefect of discipline at Ateneo High School under Father Cruz. Dean Vergara was an assiduous watchdog. At every protest, or even when one was still being planned, he was always around, observing, listening, taking mental notes, and from time to time, like a padre de familia, warning or reproving student militants.

      Ateneo students and workers protest the “death of academic freedom” in a march on campus following the dismissal of two progressive faculty members. Nathan (fourth from left) helps carry a mock coffin with the words “Durugin ang kleriko-pasismo (Crush clerico-fascism)” (1971). (Photo from the Lopez Memorial Museum Collection)

      I began to feel uneasy about my situation in school. The threat to expel the seven had unnerved me. In the weeks that followed, I wavered about whether I should be at the forefront of protest actions. I decided I had to continue with political activism, but that I should also play it safe, keeping as much as possible within the bounds of university regulations. I could not risk disciplinary action, which would mean losing my scholarship and possibly any chance of getting a university degree.

      WHILE THE SCHOOL administration was monitoring radical students, it was not sensitive to trouble developing elsewhere. For a few months, trade union organizers belonging to the radical Katipunan ng mga Samahan ng Manggagawa (KASAMA) or Federation of Workers’ Associations had been conducting politicization seminars among Ateneo’s maintenance personnel. The organizers were led by Alan Pobre, a classmate of mine who had dropped out of school to become a “full-timer” who devoted all his time to working for the movement. In mid-May, the union local left the moderate Jesuit-influenced Federation of Free Workers to create a new union affiliated with the more militant KASAMA. They drafted a list of demands, including recognition of their union, reinstatement of the two dismissed workers, a three-percent wage increase, and the release of previously collected union and life insurance dues. The administration rejected the demands, and conciliation attempts by a representative of the Department of Labor failed. On August 20, the workers voted to strike and contacted the Sanggunian to ask for our support. They set the beginning of the strike for three days later, on August 23.

      Before the strike could begin, national politics took a dramatic and gruesome turn. On August 21, 1971, at Plaza Miranda in downtown Manila, unknown persons threw live grenades on the stage during the final campaign rally of the Liberal Party, the main opposition party, before the senatorial and local elections. Nine people were killed and scores wounded. Among those seriously injured were opposition senators Jovito Salonga, Gerardo Roxas, and Sergio Osmeña Jr., and Manila mayoral candidate Ramon Bagatsing. Marcos immediately pinned the blame on the Communist Party of the Philippines, charging that it was trying to sow chaos and discord in furtherance of its plan to overthrow the government.

      I was stunned by the news of the bombing. How on earth could anyone plan and perpetrate such a despicable act? It could have been worse. If the grenades had exploded in the middle of the crowd, scores more could have been killed. A few feet closer to the stage, they could have wiped out virtually the entire leadership of the Liberal Party. I instantly dismissed Marcos’s allegations that the CPP was behind the bombing. Like many kasama, I thought it probable СКАЧАТЬ