On the January 30-31 Demonstration

An assessment of the events subsequently January 26, 1st day of brutal dispersal in the period of FQS. This is lifted from the FQS Library.

By Ang Bayan, official publication of the Communist Party of the Philippines
Published in the book, First Quarter Storm of 1970 (Silangan Publishers, 1970), p. 36-45)

The Brutality of the Reactionary State

Not satisfied with the brutal breaking-up of the January 26 demonstration in front of Congress, the reactionary regime of Marcos Perpetrated on January 30-31 far bloodier and more brutal crimes against more than 50,000 students, progressive intellectuals, workers and peasants who demonstrated in front of Malacañang.

Four student heroes enrolled in various large schools in the Greater Manila area were wantonly murdered with rifle fire by military troops and the police. Hundreds of other young men and women were seriously injured and maimed for life. They filled six large hospitals in the Greater Manila area. The savagery of the shooting and truncheon beating conducted by the reactionary troops and police was such that until now scores of demonstrators continue to be on the verge of death. Hundreds of militant demonstrators were arrested and wounded demonstrators were thrown into PC and Army trucks like hogs for the butcherhouse. Many of those arrested were subjected to torture and long hours of interrogation by PC investigators. Some of those apprehended are still being missed by their schoolmates and friends.

Even after the demonstration, the fascist brutes continued to kidnap and arrest students and other demonstration leaders in the futile attempt of the Marcos puppet reactionary regime to blackmail and intimidate them and forestall more and bigger mass protests against its bloody crimes against the people. Immediately after the demonstration, the reactionary government filed sedition charges against demonstration leaders and other militants, closed the schools in the Greater Manila area and turned its spies against patriotic students and leaders of mass organizations suspected of organizing more protest actions. A ban on protest demonstrations was brazenly imposed.

During and after the demonstrations, the fascist puppet chieftain Marcos called all his top henchmen in the major services of the reactionary armed forces and briefed them for more intensified suppression and intimidation of patriotic students and organizations. The U.S. A.I.D,-trained brutes of the Manila police as well as those of the suburban areas were organized to be let loose on the demonstrators.
Never has there been a more open and bloodier suppression of democratic rights in the city than the suppression of the demonstration of January 30-31.

The Revolutionary Courage of the Students and Other Demonstrators

The militant participants of the January 26 demonstration in front of Congress were never cowed by the brutality of the reactionary state. They came back with more intense patriotism and courage to join the January 30-31 demonstration against the reactionary state and the fascist puppets of U.S. imperialism.

The militant students, constituting the majority of the participants in the demonstrations, came in big numbers from 36 universities, colleges and high schools in Manila. Also participating were representatives from more than 40 universities and colleges in the provinces. Together with contingents of workers and peasants, they gave full play to the revolutionary spirit of “It is right to rebel” against U.S. imperialism and local reaction. They fought tit for tat against the reactionary troops and police with explosives made on the spot, iron bars taken from street railings and stones. They commandeered a fire truck to break the main gate of Malacañang and a bus to break the lines of the advancing hordes of Metrocom men and set fire to several army and police vehicles, including trucks, jeeps and a cop motorcycle.

The patriotic demonstrators shouted revolutionary slogans condemning the fascist brutality of the reactionary state and calling on the workers, peasants, students and progressive intellectuals to unite against U.S. imperialism, feudalism and the Marcos puppet reactionary regime.

The residents in the demonstration area were inspired by the dauntless revolutionary spirit of the demonstrators as they held their ground against the attacks of the armed brutes of the reactionary state. They took in many wounded demonstrators and even treated them.

Frightened out of his wits, the fascist puppet Marcos gave the order to shoot the patriotic demonstrators and had a helicopter ready for his immediate escape from the ire of the militant demonstrators. Apart from the 2,000 reactionary troops which unleashed the sanguinary suppression against the demonstrating masses, AFP chieftain Manuel Yan ordered the 12,000-man strong PC on “red-alert”, and the air force, navy and army on “blue alert”. He even summoned Task Force Lawin, the Marines and five companies of the Special Forces from Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija to reinforce the troops in and around Manila. This has clearly shown the utter panic of the Marcos reactionary regime in confronting the militant masses of demonstrators. In mortal fear of further mass protest actions against its corrupt and brutal regime, it has kept a large number of reactionary troops in the Greater Manila area up to now.

After the demonstration of January 30-31, the patriotic students and other demonstrators have continuously fought in various forms the reactionary puppet regime and vowed to develop their struggle in scale and depth. Their dauntless revolutionary spirit has inspired and won the sympathy of the broad masses of the people throughout the country. Mass actions are sweeping the country in support of the January 30-31 demonstration and in protest against the fascist terror perpetrated by the Marcos puppet reactionary regime.

The revolutionary courage and heroism of the students have lifted the hearts of the oppressed and exploited people all over the country. They have in a big way fanned the flames of revolutionary struggle. The entire Filipino people are increasingly awakening to the need for armed revolutionary struggle in the face of armed counter-revolution.

Subsequent Tactics of the Enemy

Within 24 hours after the sanguinary suppression of the patriotic demonstrators, the fascist chieftain Marcos babbled in his “nationwide call” through the mass media that the militant mass demonstration was either “communist-inspired” and “not communist-inspired” in a desperate effort to tone down the immediate nationwide condemnation of his bloody crimes. Marcos has tried in vain to cover up the fact that the broad masses of the student demonstrators together with workers and peasants, are united in their common feeling of indignation against and in their resistance to his puppet reactionary regime and his U.S. imperialist masters. He cannot hope to split the ranks of patriotic students, workers and peasants who will always rise up inasmuch as they have reached a new and higher level of consciousness against the enemies of national democracy.

Marcos has tried to wash his hands of the blood of the patriotic demonstrators brutally murdered and maimed by his henchmen – the reactionary military troops and police. He even has the impudence to demand gratitude from the people because he has exercised “tolerance” and restrained himself from murdering more students or formally suspending the privilege of habeas corpus. But his hypocritical speech cannot erase the fact of the unprecedented murder of four student youth and maiming and mass arrests of hundreds of patriotic demonstrators under his regime nor can it hide the truth that all this is but a preparation for further bloody suppressions of patriotic militants and organizations and the national democratic movement in general.

Marcos’ January 31st red-baiting statement has set the line for the subsequent bicameral hearings being conducted by Congress. It is evident from the pattern of interrogation in the hearings that militant and patriotic organizations are the object of this witch-hunt. This again is a dirty scheme to divert the attention of the people from the bloody crimes of the Marcos reactionary regime and to stifle the growing mass movement of the Filipino people against U.S. imperialism and its local reactionary allies. It is not surprising fur such a politically bankrupt regime to concentrate its attack on those who truly speak and act for the national democratic interests of the people. Not a single one of its henchmen who brutally attacked the patriotic demonstrators has been apprehended and tried.

Far from putting the blame on the reactionary troops and police, Marcos even lauded their “exemplary” conduct in the murder, maiming and mass arrests of the patriotic militant demonstrators. Together with his gang of fascist brutes, Marcos led a field mass at Malacañang Park where he took the opportunity to exhort the troops of the reactionary armed forces to prepare for more sanguinary suppression of the people’s struggle for national liberation and democratic rights.

Marcos callously manipulates the Catholic Church through Cardinal Santos, the bishops and the priests to chasten the demonstrators for having militantly acted in defense of their democratic rights. True to his role as an apologist of the counter-revolutionary state which exploits and oppresses the Filipino people, Cardinal Santos is first of all “concerned” about the “destruction” of “private property” than about the wanton killing of four student demonstrators and the serious injury of hundreds of demonstrators by the Marcos fascist gang. He clamours for a “dialogue” only after a monologue of bullets burst out from the guns of the reactionary troops and police to repress the indignant voices of the patriotic demonstrators who gathered on that historic day of January 30 and fought back for more than six hours till the early hours of January 31. in more cleverly couched terms so as not to appear “political”, he has also warned against “ideologies” which “sow disunity” among the people. This is a vicious attempt to hide the truth that never in the history of our country have the Filipino people forged such a militant unity against such a hopelessly corrupt regime which has extremely isolated itself from the overwhelming majority of the people because of its virulent opposition to their national democratic aspirations.

After the murder, maiming and mass arrests of patriotic demonstrators, the Marcos puppet regime would now dangle before the students monetary and other material bribes such as the promise of a $0.6 million trust fund for so-called “student welfare programs and projects” and the creation of a “national student commission”. But the students know better. They are very much aware that this is but one ace of the counter-revolutionary dual tactic of the fascist puppet regime to soften up their struggle against the reactionary state. They are more vigilant than ever about the dirty trick of buying off scabs in the student and youth movement.

In order to attack the surging patriotic student and youth movement, the Marcos reactionary regime is resorting to the use of fascist gangs and even the “Monkees”. It has also sent infiltrators and agents into youth meetings and conferences in the foolish hope of splitting the ranks of patriotic and militant organizations of youth and students.

The Marcos reactionary regime continues to mobilize thousands of military troops for guarding the Greater Manila area. It has ordered the PC authorities of various zones to organize their own “anti-riot” squads to suppress the rapidly spreading wave if indignation rallies and demonstrations against the brutal suppression of the patriotic demonstrators in Manila.

The puppet regime of Marcos in its role as the chief hatchetman of U.S. imperialism and feudalism has been so discredited before the eyes of the broad masses of the Filipino people that only the most rabid counter-revolutionaries will ever try to save it from its inevitable doom as the local revisionist renegades are vainly attempting to do by crying in dismay about the “purely anti-Marcos” line of the recent militant mass demonstrations. Evidently, this is for the sole purpose of begging political capital from the Marcos reactionary regime in the form of allowing them to participate in bourgeois parliamentary politics.

Evaluation of the January 26 and January 30-31 Demonstrations
The demonstrations of January 26 and January 30-31 came close on the heels of the student and worker demonstrations against the visit of U.S. Vice-President Agnew last December 29. They signify the new awakening of the Filipino people against U.S. imperialism and the local reactionary puppets. They are a bugle call for more militant mass actions in the city for this year as well as the current decade.
These demonstrations have served to raise the consciousness of the masses of the Filipino people against the reactionary state which serves U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. The broad masses of the people have increasingly understood the need for revolutionary armed struggle against the armed counter-revolution and for overthrowing the present reactionary state.

The demonstrations have served as a rich source of activists for the national democratic revolution and, therefore, of prospective members and fighters of the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army.

The revolutionary mass actions in the city are bound to develop in coordination with the surging agrarian revolution in the countryside. Under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines, ideological, political and organizational preparations are continuously being made for intensified revolutionary armed struggle in the countryside and bigger mass actions in the city against U.S. imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. The entire reactionary system in the Philippines is rotting daily and the objective conditions for waging armed struggle are getting better daily.

Internationally, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are plunging speedily into insoluble political and economic crises while the invincible forces of socialism and national liberation are surging in ever-victorious waves.
The revolutionary situation has never been so excellent!

The students and progressive intellectuals who participated in the demonstrations of January 26 and January 30-31 have proven their revolutionary courage and militance. By constantly studying and implementing Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in a living way and by integrating themselves firmly with the masses of workers and peasants, learning from as well as teaching them, they will certainly not fall back but march forward along the road of the struggle for national democracy.