The ferment that was FQS

It was a Black Friday. That infamous day that shocked the entire nation when high-powered guards of Malacanang fired upon fleeing youth rallyists on January 30, 1970 happened just four days after demonstration of around 20, 000 youth which was also violently dispersed by the Metropolitan Command of the Philippine Constabulary. Many of the students were indiscriminately fired upon with Armalites and Thompson from the back as they retreated as far as Claro M. Recto Avenue. Four hapless rallyist died in the January 30 assualt: Felicisimo Singh Roldan, 21, of the Far Eastern University; Ricardo Alcantara, 19, of the University of the Philippines; Fernando Catabay, 18, of Manuel L. Quezon University and; Bernardo Tausa, 16, of the Mapa High School.

What happened in that Black Friday convinced many about the character of the Marcos regime and its fascistic propensity. Demonstrations would be organized day after it happened, and sustained week after week.

But Marcos, whose fascistic nature increasingly exhibited, would employ “red-baiting” as justification to the murder and repressions of dissenters. For example, on the Black Friday incident, instead of castigating the MetroCom commanding officer, Marcos fired the canon ball at the demontrators themselves and promoted Col. Ordoñez to general!

Marcos spoke of a conspiracy: “I have been receiving continuous information of the conspiracy that is being perfected or was perfected for the takeover of Malacañang Palace…..” and madly self-convincingly said “To the insurrectionary elements, I have a message. My message is: any attempt at the forcible overthrow of the government will be put down immediately. I will not tolerate nor allow Communist to take over…The Republic will defend itself with all the force at its command until your armed elements are annihilated. And I shall lead them.”

Marcos, in his vicious attempt at concealing his regime' accountability in the murder and the many mifortunes the country is experiencing, concocted a shadow state enemy in the name of the “subversives”, the destabilizers of the fortunate order of things and perfect democracy under his administration.

The country would be increasingly symphatetic to the cause of the demonstrators, and their clamor even echoed by politicians in the unlikely halls like the Congress and Senate. While Marcos and his henchmen are getting utterly isolated.

That historical juncture would later be called the First Quarter Storm (FQS). This period from January 25 to March of 1970 ignated not just on the days when the state police began dispersing youth rallies with excessive brutality. A year later, Diliman Commune which started out as a student strike on the first day of February against the 3 centavo oil price increase per liter, would eventually become the University of the Philippines academic community's defiance against military and police incursion of the barricade.

The powder, the source of the powerful agitation for youth outrage would later become clearer to the older generation. It was not the youth's penchant for adventures and riots nor an empty mimic of the mamoth rallies and youth and students occupations in Europe and America in the turn of the decade. The youth scorned the corruption of the nation's leaders, the classical feudal oppression in vast countryside, the domination of US of almost all of our country's state of affairs.

Most of the students and youth who joined the demonstrations harbor resentment at the lavishness of the Marcos' family and cronies amidst the greater poverty of great majority of the Filipinos. Frustrations run high over the daily crunch of the poor caused by the sky-rocketing inflation, and Marcos' servility to the United States, marching in kowtow in its wars around the globe from America's proxy wars and backed dictators in Latin America, to the US-backed Suharto genocide of communists in neighboring Indonesia to the Vietnam War.

Although not yet fully dominated by the leftist activists, having at the start at the helm moderate leaders such as Edgar Jopson of the National Union of Students in the Philippines (NUSP), the radicals like the Kabataang Makabayan and Samahan ng Kabaataang Demokratiko (SDK) would usually bring its members and mobilize in thousands. Around 37 universities were represented for example in the January 30 demonstration and in this mamoth rally, streets leading to Malacanang from Recto Ave. were literally clogged by the demonstration, with its tail reaching until Congress (now National Museum building).

Their slogans “Imperialismo, Burukrata-kapitalismo, Pyudalismo IBAGSAK!” and “Makibaka, Huwag Matakot!” would reverbirate throughout. The “National Democratic” leaders would give the sharpest analysis of the character of the Philippine society, and bluntly call Marcos the puppet of the US. Isssues in the national and local context, and even in the international scene would not be left unscrutinized.

It could be true that not all participants in the FQS had the foresight on how the series of events would eventually end. Some might have disparaged opinions about the meaning of the FQS. Some might call it an event or series of remarkable events. But many regard it as an awakening period in our history that actually mold a fighting generation. The FQS pose the very issue of societal ills and oppression, how to confront a status quo which wield the coersive apparatus and brandish its might to any dissenters.

Most of all, it led many of the brightests of that generation to the road less travelled, taking the option of the just and revolutionary way of ending the oppression as the only way, going to the countryside and merging with the peasants in the armed struggle. Marcos in responding with ironhand, in a way, has been one of the best recruiters of activists and guerrilla fighters for the New Peoples Army.

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Today's ND activists always look back to FQS as a defining period in our history. The political astuteness and courage of FQS activists, would anyway continue to inspire the youth movement in the early 80s up to the depose of the Marcos dictatorship, to the generation of youth activists that ousted Estrada in 2001.

FQS is thus never too far. The oppression and societal ills that former activists never balked at in confronting have grown to be immedicable. And a revolutionary goad for another transforming storm will continuously be in the making.

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In its 4oth commemorative anniversary, veterans of the FQS launched an online archive of that period. It contains rare pictures of the actions and events, with eye-witness account published in some of the country's leading journals right after the events.

Check this out!