at Ateneo. Perhaps partly because I wanted more action and adventure, I opted for KM.
Given the absence of a KM chapter at Ateneo, three dorm mates and I invited a KM leader from UP, Bonifacio (Boni) Ilagan, to explain to us its history and program. Though we did not fully understand all his terms and concepts, we were ready recruits. We set up an Ateneo chapter of KM, with myself as chairman, and started recruiting more members. Only later did I become aware of ideological differences between radical groups, and that I had chosen alliance with the Mao-influenced Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) through KM, over alliance with the old-line pro-Soviet Partidong Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP)1 through MPKP.
MEANWHILE, THE STUDENT council was doing no better than before. The mock Con-Con was a big flop. Few Ateneans attended the teach-ins and less than one-third of the students cast ballots in the election for mock Con-Con delegates. The St. Theresa’s College council officers, who succeeded in eliciting much better participation, were aghast. The mock Con-Con itself failed to produce a draft Philippine constitution as had been intended. In the midst of the fiasco, LDA, which had decided at the last minute to participate, scored some propaganda points. “For me, the mock Constitutional Convention is a comedy,” declared one of the delegates, Perfecto (Boy) Martin, in an interview with the Guidon. “It is a preview of what is going to happen in the real Constitutional Convention.”
The LDA tactics were indeed a preview of what the NatDems were doing nationally, participating in the Con-Con elections mainly to expose the convention as a farce staged by the ruling elite to head off an armed revolution of the masses. NatDems actively supported the candidacy of former UP student council chairman Enrique Voltaire Garcia III, a young and popular leftist. In the actual Con-Con elections in November, Garcia handily won a seat.
AFTER THE MOCK Con-Con debacle, the membership of LDA grew rapidly, even though its organizing efforts had been focused outside campus. The growing opinion within radical ranks was that a substantial number of Ateneans, possibly even a majority, could be radicalized or could at least become sympathetic to the radical cause.
Soon the radical groups on campus, including our newly established KM-Ateneo, were conducting teach-ins and discussion groups right in the middle of the college quad. Sitting in a circle on the grass, we would read aloud passages from a leftist publication or manifesto and position papers on the burning issues of the day and debate the fine points for an hour or two. Among our favorite reading materials were Sison’s Struggle for National Democracy and Mao’s little red book. We all called each other kasama (comrade). Sometimes we would proudly wave red flags and banners with group emblems or slogans. A kasama would strum a guitar during breaks when classes would not be disturbed, and we would sing progressive or revolutionary songs. Not to be outdone, the moderate activist groups—Kilusan ng Kabataan para sa Kalayaan (KKK) or Movement of Youth for Freedom, Kapulungan ng mga Sandigan ng Pilipinas (KASAPI) or Assembly of Pillars of the Philippines, and Lakasdiwa (Strength of Spirit)—soon also held quad discussions and group singing. All factions distributed leaflets and publications, and everyone competed at “operation dikit,” painting radical slogans in red on old newspapers and posting them on bulletin boards and walls.
Perhaps the emergence and growth of our new KM chapter contributed to an LDA reorganization. As I learned then, it had been set up jointly by SDK and the broader KM organization shortly after the First Quarter Storm because two separate chapters seemed too many for our small university. However, LDA was finding it increasingly difficult to carry out the programs and follow directions from two separate, albeit fraternal, national organizations. LDA reorganized to become SDK-Loyola, and four members moved over to join us in KM-Ateneo. We heartily welcomed the four: Rigoberto (Bobi) Tiglao, Ferdinand (Ferdie) Arceo, Boy Martin, and Emerito (Baby Boy) Paulate. Though we now had 30 members, these four were among the minority—about a third—who could be considered active. Our leading members, some of whom were on the dean’s list and were well known on campus, also included writers Manuel (Manolet) Dayrit and Conrado de Quiros.
By my second semester at Ateneo, despite my earlier misgivings, the NatDem radicals had taken center stage in campus politics. Issues of the Guidon before and after the Christmas break carried, in installments, the third chapter of Sison’s “ The Philippine Crisis,” where he arrived at the point of arguing for a “people’s democratic revolution” to be led by the CPP. The installments had been approved for publication under the new editor, who had topped the editorial exams for the Guidon, KM’s Manolet Dayrit.
A FUROR AROSE early in the semester regarding a new textbook in English literature, a required course for all freshmen. Invention consisted of essays compiled by Fr. Joseph Landy, an American Jesuit at the university. Nine Filipino faculty members teaching English issued a manifesto objecting to Invention’s “colonial and reactionary” viewpoint and declaring the book a hindrance to Filipinization.
I fully agreed; I found it to be a typical Western-oriented English textbook, despite the inclusion of a few articles by Filipino authors. I felt that the editor had been insensitive to, or perhaps even unaware of, the rising nationalist and anti-neocolonial consciousness sweeping the country.
For me, as for other NatDem radicals, the issue was not just the Western orientation of the book. The summer before entering Ateneo, I had avidly read some essays of the nationalist historian Renato Constantino and had become convinced of his view that the entire Philippine educational system was neocolonial. The use of English as the medium of instruction, a part of the American colonial legacy, had created a huge gap between an English-speaking elite and the great majority of Filipinos. The Western content and orientation of textbooks added to this alienation of the educated. I could still remember learning to read and write through stories about middle-class American children—John, Jean, and Judy, their dog Spot and Judy’s teddy bear, Tim. We learned about apples and pears, cowboys and Indians, Thanksgiving and Halloween, snowmen and Santa Claus, all of which were alien to the concrete realities of a tropical Third World country.
KM-Ateneo, SDK-Loyola, KKK, and Lakasdiwa issued position papers criticizing Invention as fostering a colonial mentality. With the student council’s endorsement, the freshman council asked for a revision of the book and called on students and teachers to “struggle against the neocolonial system of education.” But when it came to campaigning against Invention, my colleagues in the freshman council balked. I found myself, with Tom, a radical-leaning freshman who had come from a public high school, thrust into the forefront, speaking to class after class and gathering signatures on a petition. The protest culminated in a symbolic burning of a pile of books and an effigy of Uncle Sam in the college quad. We could not afford more than one copy of Invention to burn, but, appropriately the other books were old textbooks distributed free to public schools by the U.S. Information Service.
Eventually, most freshman English teachers replaced Invention with a hurriedly assembled compilation of essays, Perspectives. I expected my English teacher, Fr. James Donelan, to insist on using Invention. An Irish-American Jesuit, Father Donelan had been one of the most affected by the Filipinization movement. He had been president of the university until 1969, when he was pressured to resign in favor of a Filipino Jesuit. Instead of retiring, he went back to teaching. Kind and gentle, Father Donelan had a quiet dignity. He was fair and even indulgent toward everyone, including me, even when he knew that I was radical and one of the leaders of the anti-Invention campaign. He asked the class to vote on what we wanted to use. We voted for Perspectives, and Father Donelan accepted our choice.
The campaign against Invention was a turning point for me. It was the first time I had taken a public, leading role in a major campus protest. I did not regret this, though I did feel a bit disturbed about having burned books. Another council member pointed out that Hitler, in the 1930s, had stirred up the public with bonfires of books deemed poisonous to the ideals of Nazism. I was not sure if we had stepped over the line of legitimate protest into extremism and intolerance.
Before
