#heromomukhamo

A Protest Snapshot from 1984

Look intently at the photo.

Imagine it moving in slow motion. The woman on the left, resolute, unmasked, arms locked with an old man on her left. The old man, holding his salacot, was wincing in pain at the tear gas, head bowed, and hands on his eyes. Consider the other man on his side, with a beret hat, raising his hands as if he can hold back the drizzle of water from the water hose pointed at the crowd. He was beside a man with a walking cane, an old man wearing his gas mask, resolute. They were leading the crowd who were cowering behind them, amidst the drizzle.

All of them were resolute in standing their ground.

The day the photo was taken was September 27, 1984. The protest was at Welcome Rotonda, along the border of Quezon City and Manila. The people in the photo, were great figures of the time: (from left to right) Cebuana radio commentator Nenita Cortes-Daluz; Manila Times founder Chino Roces; brother of Ninoy, Butz Aquino; former Senator Lorenzo Tañada; and his son, Wigberto Tañada. Standing behind Roces was theater and film director, Behn Cervantes.

It had been more than a year since the Ninoy Aquino assassination, when the leader of the Marcos opposition was shot dead at the tarmac as he alighted his plane at the Manila International Airport. Since then, discontent had been fomenting. The people, complacent with the good news and propaganda incessantly featured in State-run TV channels and radio for the longest time, was seemingly struck by lightning at the assassination. People said, Marcos wouldn’t dare touch him. There was a seeming belief in the fantasy that Marcos had created. Despite incessant rumors of forced disappearances, of “salvage,” of abuses, and the plunging economy, majority of the people chose to believe the lie. Not to do so would mean choosing an uneasy life, a complicated life, a dangerous life. It was every man for himself. As long as the dictator never interfered with my personal life, I can live with the failing economy, the rampant corruption. All this changed when Ninoy was killed in broad daylight.The blindfold suddenly came off, unveiling people’s eyes to reveal, to their great horror, the reality they were living in. Since then, began protests unlike anything seen since the First Quarter Storm of 1970.

Now come this protest in 1984, where protesters were hoping to head for Mendiola, to make Marcos hear them. They were stopped at the Welcome Rotonda area.

Susan Quimpo, a protester on that day, writes:

“Virtually all forms of protest were still considered illegal in 1984. To stage a protest rally, its organizers were required to apply for a rally permit – which, after days of going through the bureaucratic procedures, was most often denied. But that never stopped the students, or labor, or farmers, or the middle class office workers of Makati from organizing their mass actions. With or without a permit, protesters would gather and cordon off their rally site, set up their stage and banners, and proceed with their plans. The police, usually accompanied by the military, would always be present in their anti-riot gear. If the police moved in to disperse the rally, a negotiation panel – composed of the most “distinguished” attendees – stepped up to alternately admonish, demand their right to protest, beg for a few more minutes to finish the program, and eventually, implore the police officers to just let the high school and college kids off, and send them quietly home to their parents. Our cue that the rally was over was when the national anthem, the Lupang Hinirang, was sung. At the anthem’s end, we were either going to be clobbered by the police or allowed to disperse orderly, unharmed. At times, under the threat of violence, the Lupang Hinirang was sung, repeatedly – surely even the police would respect the anthem enough for us to complete singing it before they mauled us. Rody Vera of Patatag recalls that at one rally, the anthem was sang five times, in increments, as the students, walking backwards, gradually distanced themselves from a phalanx of cops whose truncheons were raised in mid-air, waiting for the command to bash their heads. Relax, I told myself. For this particular rally, our nego panel certainly had clout; no harm could befall us.”

The negotiation panel was composed of the towering figures in the photo above. But what was hopefully a peaceful protest, was dispersed violently by the police.

“About 50 meters from us, an officer was barking orders to men in uniform who were carrying M16 rifles… On cue, the men knelt on one knee while propping the other leg for balance… then they raised their rifles, positioned their fingers on the trigger, and aimed the guns directly at us. A firing squad!”

Tear gas were thrown, and gunshots were heard amidst confusion.

“All too suddenly, there was a scampering of feet; people in the front turned and were frantically pushing backwards. Instinctively, we ran, away from the Welcome rotunda and into Speaker Perez, one of the side streets close to the rotunda. After a few minutes, we heard the command, ‘Regroup!’”

There were casualties that day. Two people were killed. One was a guard stationed near the Rotonda, and the other, a bystander. Several were wounded by gunfire, most of whom were from the poorest of the poor.

Quimpo elaborates:

“Several young men were seriously wounded when bullets pierced their knees and feet. They came from the urban poor communities - the community youth who formed the “defense unit” that served as a human buffer between the police/military protecting the student protestors. “Sa baba ang tira nila (They aimed low)” was how they described how they were shot at by the cops.”

When the powers that be refuse to hear the pleas and pleadings of the people, it was a normal democratic exercise to take these pleas to the “parliament of the streets.” History precedes this very Filipino tradition. The nobility of such a move is seen, when unarmed civilians, with only their voices, placards and presence, are laid bare on the streets. The oppressors can do to them what they will. As one Evangelical pastor who was in the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986 commented when I interviewed him for an oral history project, “We put our fate in the hands of God, because He is a just judge. And in the end, His justice will prevail.”

A dictator has been buried in a cemetery intended for heroes. People would trivialize this act, saying he wasn’t given a hero’s honor when he was buried, but this triviality reeks of hypocrisy. It’s pretty obvious how this burial is just a stepping stone for a certain dynasty’s return to power. They take us for fools, when we aren’t. I heard some commenting that it’s a “done deal” since the Supreme Court has spoken. Yes, it might be so. But slavery was a “done deal” in judicial systems before, until people took to the streets to protest. The so-called Marcosian “constitutional authoritarianism” was a “done deal” until the dictatorship was toppled by the sovereign will of the People in EDSA. What do we tell our kids when they ask us of the Marcos Burial? Our kids, seeing things the way they really are, won’t care about our philosophizing and legalistic reasoning that the dictator wasn’t really a hero when buried there. That’s what’s at stake here. We should call things for what they are–to call right, right, and wrong, wrong.

*Photo at the rally in front of the De La Salle University Manila campus, by Kventurillo.

And so we protest. And in doing so, we not only make ourselves living examples for the next generation, we also join with Filipinos of generations past who took to the streets in the name of freedom and justice. We stand on their shoulders, history being on our side. I fear that soon, even this freedom to exercise our will to express dissent, would soon be taken away. Nevertheless, we will be there on November 30th, at the People Power Monument. 

We have to.

*Photo above, featured in the Official Gazette, taken by Jacinto Tee. Credits to Cheng Bigay who helped me identify the people in the photo.