To defend UP is to launch many offensives against the Duterte regime. The unilateral abrogation of the agreement between the University of the Philippines and the Department of National Defense (i.e. UP-DND Accord of 1989) is a blatant disrespect of this dictatorship to the hard-fought freedom and democratic rights won by the mass movement after the Marcos tyranny. And the best way to reclaim our democracy is to oust the dictator Duterte from power.
Gen. Delfin Lorenzana, Secretary of the DND, wrote to UP President Danilo Concepcion informing him that the government is terminating the said agreement in line with its anti-communist witch-hunt. Lorenzana baselessly alleges that the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and the New People’s Army (NPA) are recruiting inside the university and are using the UP-DND Accord as a “shield or propaganda” against military operations.
However, he fails to provide solid evidence that UP students are systematically recruited inside the campus. He maliciously desecrates the memory of UP students who joined the armed struggle as a proof to his point. It is publicly available that some UP students joined the CPP and the NPA like Recca Monte, Wendel Gumban, Malvin Cruz, and Guiller Cadano. It is their personal choice to bear arms and in no way coerced to do so. In the end, these young scholars and revolutionaries were killed by the military. It is the state who put bullets in the bodies of those who have chosen to serve students, farmers, and national minorities. This will be the same fate of activists and students when we let the military and police enter our campuses.
Our publication was not spared from the spate of state-sponsored red tagging. The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict named us as a “CPP-NPA-NDF front organization.” Local police stations and military companies published malicious propaganda against us. Many student leaders were also targeted, like UPD USC Chairperson Froilan Cariaga who was accused as a recruiter. One thing is clear for us victimized by state violence: we cannot and will not trust the AFP and the PNP who have put our lives in danger in their bid to clean blood off of their hands. We are not terrorists for critically examining and criticizing a murderous regime.
But for in the eyes of the state and their repressive apparatuses, those who call and work for genuine systemic change are “communists”, worse “terrorists.” Red-tagging became their license to kill or arrest as proven by Ka Randy Echanis and Lady Ann Salem. It is our necessary task to arouse, organize, and mobilize in this class war. Repression is only logical for desperate dictators. Thus, if Duterte and his lackeys like Lorenzana infiltrate our schools, they will certainly impose a culture of impunity and an environment of terror to diminish the remaining democratic spaces in our troubled society.
The government cannot conceal its mistakes and vested interests anymore. The anomaly in vaccine procurement, intensified state terrorism, untimely Cha-Cha, worsening economy and unemployment, disservice to our right to education, and the uncontrolled pandemic are expositions of the regime’s diametrically opposed policies to the people’s interests. In this disagreement, the state proceeds to suppress any form of dissent and organization to protect its interests – consolidate political power, amass huge profits, and prepare for the 2022 elections.
With the Anti-Terrorism Act in effect, combined with the fascist counter-insurgency, and the termination of the UP-DND Accord, the state is in full swing of its anti-democratic offensive. The Terror Law ensures the threat for anyone who seriously criticizes the regime to be tagged as a terrorist, as in the case of the Makabayan bloc and national democratic mass organizations the state links to the CPP-NPA. Meanwhile, the counter-insurgency program empowers state forces and civilian agencies to conduct state terrorism through military operations, police surveillance, and black propaganda. An intensive state policing regime will heighten if there is no organized opposition to the dictatorship.
This is why mobilizations matter. Public protests are manifestations of dissatisfaction with the government and its excesses. It is also a space of a public imaginary to alternative systems to what we have today. UP plays an important role in normalizing protests as legitimate political actions. Since the anti-communist hearings in Congress in 1961, the Diliman Commune in 1971, Martial Law protests in 1981, anti-US bases rallies in 1991, EDSA Dos in 2001, and the anti-UP Budget Cut strike in 2011, the whole community united in issues that concerned the masses. Who knows what historical event will 2021 have? It is for us to create as we begin to imagine.
UP is the University of the People. To be an Iskolar ng Bayan is to amplify the voices of those silenced and let those deafened hear them. It is our duty to serve the people. It has always been and always will be. And this is what UP is trying amid the Duterte regime. Through the UP-DND Accord, UP hosted many thousands-strong mass actions in UP Diliman and also in constituent universities. It has also welcomed Lumad bakwits, indigenous peoples and farmers in their Lakbayan, jeepney drivers in their transport strike and many groups marginalized by the state. UP is a center of protest. It provides relative freedom in a mission to liberate the whole country. Until today, UP remains a center of protest and it should still be a bastion of defiance.
Defending UP must transcend beyond the battle for a legal safeguard. The police and military never respected the UP-DND Accord as we have seen with what they did with the #Cebu8 and reports of intelligence and uniformed officers in protest venues. But totally abrogating the UP-DND Accord gives the state forces and their Commander-in-Chief all the reasons to harass, imprison, and even kill not just UP students but also those who are outside UP. Thus, to defend UP is not just a defense of academic freedom but also a defense of and for the people.
As we celebrate the 50th year of the Diliman Commune this February, let this be a challenge to the students, the faculty and the administration. For the students, let us integrate with the oppressed masses and join them in their struggle. This is what our commercialized education keeps from us. For the faculty, let us make the real world our classrooms and know that theory should be incorporated into practice. We need more educators who actively change the world.
For the UP administration, protest the DND’s unilateral abrogation and go beyond performative remembrance of our revolutionary tradition. The best way to commemorate the First Quarter Storm and the Diliman Commune is to repeat that history and lead UP in defending the people.
Now more than ever, the Filipino people must launch offensives against the desperate Duterte regime, for this is the only way that we can defend our freedom and democracy won by those who have sacrificed their lives before us. We also remember revolutionary martyrs who fought for our freedom – Ma. Lorena Barros, Lean Alejandro, William Begg, Melito Glor, Tony Tagamolila, AJ Jaramillo, Rizalina Ilagan, Erika Salang, Christine Puche, and Perper Cagulla.
These UP students who chose to be freedom fighters should remind us that the “struggle for freedom is the next best thing to actually being free” as Lean’s words resolutely reaffirms us.
Our urgent task is to oust Duterte in order to defend UP. As a community joining the broad ranks of the masses, this should be our noble contribution to “weeks where a decade happens.”
Artwork by Kate Gotis.
This article was originally published last January 19, 2021.
