CHAPTER 1

A wave of student strikes in Manila marked the beginning of the year 1969 and served as a signpost for the First Quarter Storm that would soon follow. Angered by outrageous tuition costs and run-down facilities, working-class students in the university belt district and Diliman started the strikes

The Collegian published an article that narrated the state of student activism in UP Diliman, the campaigns the activists carried out, and the momentary setbacks the movement suffered under the hands of the repressive UP Board of Regents and UP administration.

The so-called Diliman Strike where a week-long strike in February 1969 that took place in UP Diliman in protest of the educational system during the Marcos administration. Called the “Great Cultural Strike,” UP student body defied UP institutions and protested against the unfair tax system and the administration’s perpetuation of the semi-colonial and semi-feudal society in the Philippines.

The police even raided the Philippine Collegian’s office to quell the violence. It was reported that the editor-in-chief Jose Arcellana was in hiding during the raid and that students in the office had to use fire hoses at unruly policemen.

The Collegian published a series of poems considered part of the prevailing protest literature of the time. The publication of the poems coincided with the visit of then US President Richard Nixon. Some 500 UP students picketed in front of Malacañang to denounce US presence in the Philippines.

A prime characteristic of protest literature is its nationalist poetics. Serving as another form of instrument, these poems reported the true condition of the country.

UP studentry expressed condemnation of the 1969 national election where Ferdinand Marcos Sr. won his second term as the president of the Philippines.

The international media called "dirtiest, most violent and most corrupt" campaign in Philippine modern history due to reports of the administration's massive vote-buying, harassment, and ballot snatching.

The term "Three Gs," meaning "guns, goons, and gold," was coined during this period to describe Marcos’s tactics to win the election. Marcos also used the military for his campaign.

The most violent election-related incidents were reported to occur in Batanes, where Philippine Constabulary officers, paramilitary groups, and hired guns went around terrorizing voters of the island. Election officials and opposition candidates were also, beaten up by the state police. Collegian also reported Marcos’s overspending during the campaign.

As students and professors from different colleges boycotted classes as issues surrounding the 1969 electoral fraud remained unsolved, students organized a protest concert that took place across the hall of the University Theater on November 28, 1969.

On October 2, 1969, the director of private schools, Narciso Albarracin, issued Circular No. 16 which prohibited students from 13 private colleges from joining demonstrations. Students who joined, organized, and reported national demonstrations may face sanctions according to their respective colleges. The order was made in an effort of the Marcos administration to quell the massive student protests of the time.

Upon effectivity of the directive, five students from De La Salle were immediately suspended after staging a protest action in their college. In his column, Collegian editor Antonio Tagamolila stood in solidarity with students hit by the circular memo, writing that such policies should be dealt with in a united front of the student movement across universities.

To protest against foreign companies monopolizing the country’s oil industry, students and jeepney drivers marched along Plaza Miranda on January 13, 1971. The demonstration was faced by violent dispersal by the Metrocom Police, leaving four student-activists dead and 50 protestors with injuries. The four students who died were Arcangel Tiongson, 20; Edgardo Balano, 15; Winifredo Enrqiuez, 18, and Roman Flora.

Ferdinand Marcos warned the public “not to test the state’s patience,” and threatened to impose Martial Law if “communists” continue to disrupt order in the country.

The standing high oil tariffs, that resulted in oil price hikes that left jeepney drivers ailing for a decent income ignited the protest in Plaza Miranda.

One of the many mobilizations organized by progressive youth, peasant, and working groups during the '70s. Senator Jose W. Diokno, or “Ka Pepe,” is seen as he leads a discussion on foreign oil corporations in the Philippines.

The people called for Ferdinand Marcos’s resignation amid increasing human rights violations by US forces in the country, foreign corporations destroying natural resources, and displacing hundreds of indigenous communities.

UP Diliman students built a barricade along University Ave. and Katipunan Ave. in solidarity with UP jeepney drivers who were protesting against the massive oil price hikes. On the first day of the commune, three students were shot–among them was Pastor Mesina, a Zoology freshman shot by mathematics professor Inocentes Campos.

Students became synchronized in mobilizing during the Diliman Commune, taking over college buildings and the DZUP. Students took turns in aiding fellow students and guarding barricades during the commune. As tension rose between the students and the military’s attempt to enter the university, students, and professors concocted their own weapon of defense in the chemistry laboratory. Female students were also reported guarding barricades, hurling Molotov cocktails, and standing up against the Metrocom.

The tension between the conflicting parties eventually died down by the ninth day of the commune, reaching a resolution between the police and UP administration. In the resolution, police and military presence are not prohibited unless the UP president is notified. This resolution will then lead up to the 1989 University of the Philippines–Department of National Defense accord, a bilateral agreement between the Department of National Defense and UP that limited military and police access and operations inside the university.

With ideological debates between different student movements, the Kabataang Makabayan and the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan, existing in the university, 1971 Editor-in-Chief Antonio Tagamolila wrote to encourage more debates among the students. He, however, cautioned that debates would not solve the pressing crisis of the ‘70s.

“Only actual practice would reveal the difference between the true patriots and revolutionaries and the fake one,” he wrote.

Through artworks plastered in plain sight areas and wide dissemination of manifestos and newspapers, the nationalist propaganda movement utilized different art forms that birthed the genre of protest art during the '70s. One prime characteristic of protest art covers current sociopolitical issues and social movements during the period.

Located above the masthead of the Collegian, the 10 People’s Demands listed immediate calls by the Filipino people during the political and economic crisis under the Marcos Rule. The socioeconomic situation during the late '60s also prompted the First Quarter Storm during the early '70s. Aside from lowering the prices of food supply and alleviating workers’ woes, the manifesto also called for the ouster of the Marcos regime.