during the rise of the Nazis: not to turn a blind eye to the persecution of Jews, gypsies, and other minorities, before the regime turned to persecuting Christians.
Breakthrough carried in one of its first issues a Biblical passage that I thought best summed up the motives of the 3KP activists. These were the opening lines of Isaiah 61, read by Jesus at the synagogue in Bethlehem at the start of his public ministry:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
Because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free.
And to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
3KP proclaimed our NatDem credentials in an exchange with the SocDems carried in the UP campus paper, the Philippine Collegian. The SocDems had published a long article about the national crisis and their program for change. We formulated a point-by-point rebuttal that the Collegian also carried. We pointed out that the Church had been a reactionary force in Philippine history, always protective of the establishment. It could not lay claim to a preeminent position in the struggle for change. We observed also that the SocDems appeared more interested in derailing the revolutionary movement than in seeking fundamental societal change.
The SocDems responded with another article that denounced 3KP, as well as Christians for National Liberation (CNL)—an organization of NatDem priests, nuns, ministers, pastors, and lay religious workers—as constituting a communist Trojan horse that attempted to disguise the NatDem program as an allowable Christian choice. The article warned that the reds might appear welcoming now but would eventually turn on Christians and suppress them as a reactionary force. I thought the accusations unjust. They did not credit the difficult choice 3KP members had made in “fear and trembling,” they did not recognize that Christians would always have to fight for their beliefs in whatever society emerged, and they rejected dialogue in favor of preaching about the correct party line for Christians. Whether or not we won that exchange with the SocDems, the banner of 3KP was now flying.
Norman (seated extreme left) first met Bong Malonzo of the SCM at a writers’ workshop in 1966. Bong could not interest the participants in a discussion of socio-political issues, of which they had little knowledge.
IN THE SHORT PERIOD from its reorganization in 1971, the SCM was able to participate in the three main activities of NatDems in the city—protest mass action, support of workers’ strikes, and “integration with the masses.”
I joined practically all the major rallies of 1970 and 1971, first as an unattached angry citizen, then later as a member of 3KP. Bernie joined me in several of the rallies. The one she remembers best is the Good Friday march of 1972 sponsored by the Movement for a Democratic Philippines, the umbrella organization for all NatDem groups. Lent, Good Friday in particular, is a high point of Catholic religious ceremony in the Philippines, so CNL and 3KP were expected to play a big role in this rally. I remember the huge banner we carried that day—a squarish panel of katsa (rough cotton cloth) that loomed like a sail. Painted on it was a cross borne by the people—the three evils of imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism. Below the picture were the words, “Ibaling ang pagdadalamhati sa rebolusyonaryong katapangan (Turn grief into revolutionary courage).” The central character painted on the canvas was a Filipino Thor, a muscular worker striking forward with a hammer, sending a collection of dubious characters in coat, tie, and top hat and in barong tagalog scrambling back in fear.
I missed attending a major rally with 3KP because I had elected not to be absent from my classes that day. It was the one MDP organized for Caloocan City, the exit from Manila to the northern provinces. The demonstrators were to assemble at the usual places in Manila, march through Rizal Avenue and mass at the Balintawak Monument (a landmark dedicated to the 1896 revolutionary leader Andres Bonifacio and his men at the Caloocan Rotunda). The march started in downtown Manila but never quite reached the Bonifacio Monument. At the Caloocan boundary, it was brutally attacked by goons and thugs said to have been hired from the extensive squatter colonies of the city by Mayor Macario Asistio, a staunch ally of Marcos. A newspaper photograph of that time shows a fearsome mob armed with pipes, 2-by-2s, knives, and even sickles, blocking a street. The marchers had to disperse after being rushed by such armed groups. I heard about the bloody aftermath of the rally from 3KP member Sonny Hizon, who used his Ford Escort to carry wounded demonstrators to nearby hospitals.
The one occasion when 3KP members were able to give direct support to workers was when we joined striking workers picketing at the Atlas factory in Novaliches, an industrial zone on the outskirts of Manila. When I got to the large vacant lot in front of the factory, a group of about 30—some workers and 3KP activists—had gathered near the entrance. The person chosen to express our support for the strike, an ex-seminarian named Rey, was delivering his speech. Suddenly, a jeepload of policemen arrived. They closed up in a rough line to within a dozen meters and stood there menacingly as Rey was getting to the high point of his speech. He had his fist raised and was shouting, “At ano kung harapin nila tayo ng karahasan? (And what if they confront us with violence?)” He was referring vaguely to the state, not to this group of policemen specifically. Everyone waited nervously for his answer to his own question, seeing that the policemen were within hearing distance. The tension was palpable. He continued weakly, “Eh di kausapin natin sila. (Oh then we reason out with them.)” That was the end of his speech and the small crowd quietly dispersed, we 3KP members slinking away with all the dignity we could muster. When we had put some distance between ourselves and the policemen, we broke out in laughter, slapping Rey on the back and teasing him about his tough words.
The leadership of 3KP felt that sooner or later we would have to do organizing work among the masses. This required that we first learn how to analyze the situation in a community. We had to practice conducting what was called by activists a “social investigation” or “SI.” The term used was derived from Mao’s essay, “On Social Investigation,” the principal guide of NatDem activists on the analysis of the differing social classes. A team of activists would survey a community, determine the social classes present there, and detail the dynamics between these classes. The team would then have basic data on who may be sympathetic to, and who may oppose, revolutionary change.
We set out to do our first SI near a Philippine Army camp in Bicutan, a town south of Manila. Yes, we knew the exercise would also give our members a chance to “integrate” or express solidarity with the poor in the area. But beyond that, we felt we had taken a significant step in the journey to the countryside and people’s war.
None of us had any experience in this kind of activity. In preparation, we had studied Mao’s article and obtained copies of some guidelines from another NatDem organization. I approached the project with some hesitance. Going out to talk to the residents of an urban poor community was novel and strange to a petty bourgeois intellectual like myself. Moreover, I was a shy person and doing SI meant I would be going out of my way to talk to strangers, in Tagalog, that I, an Ilonggo, was ill at ease with. But my comrades and I threw ourselves into the spirit of the exercise and quickly became absorbed in the details of the operation.
The area was government land so everyone who lived there was technically a squatter. We divided up the area into sections, assigned a pair of activists to each section, and fanned out. This way, we were able to interview almost all the residents of the area.
It was not easy figuring out who was who among the settlers. Who was oppressor and who was oppressed? Practically all of those we interviewed seemed to be oppressed. They all
