The valedictorian award meant so much to Mom and Dad. They worked very hard to send all their children to schools with high standards, to prepare us for whatever profession we might choose. The medal meant a lot to me too. I had studied hard through all four years of high school. Driven at least in part by personal ambition, I had always aimed for excellence. I felt that at that stage in my life, I was faring very well.
After all of us 180 graduating students had received our diplomas, the master of ceremonies called on me to deliver the valedictory. Walking to the podium, I felt nervous. With the recent wave of nationalist sentiment sweeping the country, there was a clamor for graduation speeches to be delivered in Filipino (called Pilipino until the adoption of the 1987 Philippine Constitution), the national language based on Tagalog, not in English as in the past. I fully supported the idea. Not being a native Tagalog speaker, however, I did not have a good command of Filipino. I wrote my speech in English first, then translated it into Filipino. Somewhat concerned about my language skills, I asked my Filipino teacher at the last minute to edit my speech. To my embarrassment, he replaced huge chunks of my translation.
However, the language problem was only secondary. I felt taut mainly because I was about to comment on the tumultuous events that had shaken Manila and the whole country over the past few months. In San Beda, we had had a ringside view of the tumult in front of the school on Mendiola Street, where the worst rioting had occurred. I wasn’t sure how the audience, including my fellow graduates, would react to my valedictory.
Demonstrators flee police and tear gas in the University Belt during the First Quarter Storm (1970). (Photo from the Lopez Memorial Museum Collection)
A FEW MONTHS BEFORE, the First Quarter Storm of 1970—“FQS”—had rocked the country. It was a major socio-political disturbance that no one had forecasted.
Throughout high school, I had been active in extracurricular activities (except sports, which I disliked): the student council, the student newspaper, the debating club, cultural activities, various school competitions, etc. But nothing in my student life prepared me for the FQS. The only activities I had engaged in that reflected some degree of social awareness were fund raisers, such as soliciting newspapers and old clothes for the poor or for victims of natural disasters, and teaching catechism on weekends to schoolchildren in a depressed community nearby. I did keep abreast of national political developments and sometimes got into lively discussions in the debating club, without committing myself to any political position, but that was all.
San Beda College, a private boys’ school run by Benedictine monks, stood in the heart of Manila several hundred meters from the gates of Malacañang Palace. Like many other private schools run by Roman Catholic religious orders in the Philippines, San Beda provided an education from grade school to college. It was one of the top exclusive schools that catered mainly to scions of the upper and middle classes, boasting a higher standard of education and charging higher tuition than other schools.
Many protest marches passed in front of the school on the way to Malacañang, but I would only watch them without joining. Like many of my schoolmates, I was a bit scared that violence would suddenly break out. The only violent rally that I could recall had occurred in October 1966, when police forcibly dispersed anti-Vietnam War protesters during the visit of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson. However, I had seen many newspaper photos and much TV and film footage of student demonstrators clashing with the police in the U.S. and other parts of the world. Students of exclusive schools, even those already in college, rarely went to protest rallies. When they did, they joined Catholic-inspired rallies sponsored by such organizations as the Federation of Free Farmers, the Federation of Free Workers, Khi Rho, and the Christian Social Movement, all organizations strongly influenced by Vatican II. For many Sanbedistas (as students of San Beda were called), these rallies were merely an occasion to ogle and socialize with colegialas.
Mom pins a medal for academic excellence on Nathan’s shirt at a high school award ceremony in San Beda College (1969).
In mid-January 1970, the student body of San Beda High School was invited to join a big rally scheduled on January 26 in front of Congress. The invitation was coursed through our student council, of which I was the secretary of external affairs. The organizer, the National Union of Students of the Philippines (NUSP), timed the rally for the opening of Congress, during which newly reelected President Ferdinand Marcos would deliver the annual state of the nation address. The NUSP, a union of student councils from all over the country, was prestigious and considered responsible. It was led by Edgar (Edjop) Jopson, student council president at Ateneo de Manila University, considered the leading private boys’ school in the land. Prior to the rally, the NUSP issued a manifesto calling on political parties not to interfere in the Constitutional Convention (“Con-Con”)1 slated to be convened in 1971. A growing number of the populace, especially among the youth, distrusted politicians and the two main political parties, the Nacionalistas and the Liberals, as representing the landed elite and vested interests and further enriching themselves in office. These politicos blocked meaningful social reform, preserving the skewed distribution of wealth in defiance of the growing antagonism between the have-nots and the haves, oblivious to the social volcano about to explode. Many reform-minded people looked at the Con-Con as the last chance to institute fundamental change and prevent a bloody revolution; they wanted politicos to keep their dirty hands off the Con-Con.
The student council in my last year in high school was far more active and energetic than in other years, and effective at stimulating student involvement in school and civic activities. With the civic-spiritedness promoted by the council, it was easy to commit Sanbedistas to participate in the NUSP rally.
It was my first big rally, but I had no cause for concern. A majority of students were participating, with parental approval, and some of the faculty were also joining. Students from many other religious-run schools would be there. Our school administration endorsed participation, with the implicit backing of the Catholic Church hierarchy. The day before the rally, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines issued a “prayer” for a nonpartisan Con-Con. What could possibly go wrong?
In our school uniforms, we marched, in neat rows under the hot afternoon sun, from school all the way to Congress, as we did during San Beda’s annual procession for the Holy Infant of Prague, though without the candles. Some of my schoolmates, kids of 12 or 13, were getting a taste of the parliament of the streets for the first time. We proudly carried our school’s red-and-white banner, as well as posters and placards calling for a nonpartisan Con-Con.
Thousands were at the rally site—it was the biggest student rally I had seen. Colorful banners and streamers, mostly red and white, fluttered in front of the legislative building. Some carried slogans, others the names of schools or organizations. Placards were hoisted everywhere. Student leaders took turns addressing the crowd. They lambasted President Marcos and Congress for graft and corruption, for campaign irregularities and violence during the elections two months before, and for failing to enact land reform and other basic reforms. Some speakers used profane language and cracked off-color jokes that made the crowd roar, but sometimes made me flinch. In one section of the crowd, a boisterous group chanting militant slogans repeatedly interrupted the speakers. “Ibagsak ang imperyalismong Kano! (Down with U.S. imperialism!)” “Marcos, papet! (Marcos, puppet!).” The slogans seemed to me off-tangent, completely unrelated to the theme of the rally. I couldn’t understand what those rowdy demonstrators were doing as part of our rally. The names on their streamers read Kabataang Makabayan (KM), Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK), and Lyceum of the Philippines. From time to time, rally organizers pleaded with the unruly rallyists to pipe down.
In general, however, the rally was peaceful and orderly, and I felt that it had been a worthwhile experience for my schoolmates