SETBACKS SUFFERED by the Ateneo moderates must have dismayed and deeply embarrassed the Jesuits. Moderate activism was closely identified with them—most of the major moderate activist groups in the country had been organized by Jesuits or persons trained by them. On the whole, the Jesuits espoused social reform but were strongly opposed to violence and revolution. Thus, the radicals’ advocacy of armed struggle, even if covert, must have alarmed them, as must have the radicals’ espousal of communist ideology, seen as totalitarian and antireligion. Furthermore, radical activism was developing into a threat to the Ateneo itself. In their view, radicals were manipulating such issues as Filipinization and resorting to extreme forms of protest that disturbed the campus and disrupted the university’s academic mission. Unchecked, radicals could undermine the Ateneo’s Catholic and liberal leanings and destroy it as an institution of learning.
Ateneo students attend to their barricade in front of the university’s Gate 3 during a protest against campus repression (1971). (Photo from the Lopez Memorial Museum Collection)
When the Filipinization movement started in Ateneo, the Jesuits were divided, with the American Jesuits in general opposing it and the Filipino Jesuits supporting it to some degree, though not really challenging Ateneo’s overall Western orientation. As criticism became more strident during my first year, with the rejection of the path of social reform, the Jesuits put aside their differences regarding Filipinization and banded together in defense of their educational system.
As early as September 1970, Fr. Francisco Araneta, then newly installed as rector and president of Ateneo, declared: “Academic freedom cannot be absolute. No living organism allows without a struggle those forces which would destroy it to remain within the body. The university likewise cannot allow forces that are destructive of the university and of the total community to remain in the body. At one point it must make a stand.”
Few students paid much heed to those words, which were belied by the administration’s tolerance of leftist views and leniency toward radical militants. Before and after this declaration, we were able to speak out and publish virtually anything without being censored or harassed. From time to time, Dean Chee Kee did take down unsigned activist statements posted on the SOB (the student opinion board) and reminded activist leaders in the quad to switch off their sound systems or give up their megaphones when classes were in session. He warned that anyone disturbing classes was liable to be disciplined, but no one was actually sanctioned. Activists, including myself, were several times called to his office or that of Father Bernas, but the most that we got was a light oral reprimand never committed to paper.
Similarly, at the dorms, the proctors left radicals to themselves as long as they followed dorm rules. The only exception may have been my physics teacher, Fr. Francisco Glover, who stayed in Cervini. Jolly and friendly toward me when we first met, he took to needling me as well as other radical students: “If you don’t like Ateneo’s system of education, then get out of it.” When we had a chat once, he gibed, “Ateneo has given you a dormitory scholarship, why do you keep attacking it?” He cut off any reply by saying it was pointless to discuss further.
Toward the end of the school year, a more unified, harder line against campus radicalism became visible. When Father Bernas announced that he would not continue as dean of the college, Father Araneta picked Fr. Jose Cruz, an assistant professor of philosophy, to replace him despite strong objections from students and faculty. A tough disciplinarian when he was principal of the Ateneo High School, Father Cruz was controversial as a philosophy teacher. Known to be a personal friend of the Marcos family, he appalled many upperclassmen who took his courses with what they viewed as his apologetics for Marcos in class.
Close on the heels of Father Cruz’s appointment was the dismissal of two leftist faculty members. Dr. Dante Simbulan, associate professor of political science, and Adolfo de Guzman, mathematics instructor, were both NatDems and members of Malayang Guro ng Ateneo (MAGAT), to which my brother Norman also belonged. De Guzman, in addition, was chairman of the Ateneo chapter of the NatDem Samahan ng Makabansang Siyentipiko. When final exams started, they were informed that their teaching contracts, due to expire in four days, would not be renewed.
The new student council, which now referred to itself by its Filipino name, Sanggunian ng mga Mag-aaral, asked for the reasons for the dismissal of the two teachers, which Father Araneta refused to disclose, claiming that the proceedings of the committee on rank and tenure were confidential. Approached by Simbulan, however, he cited such reasons as poor teaching ability and irregular office hours. This was unconvincing since both teachers had been favorably evaluated by their respective department chairmen and had already been assigned teaching loads for the next semester. The political science staff attested that Simbulan kept regular office hours.
The Sanggunian could see no plausible reason why Simbulan and de Guzman were sacked other than their left-wing politics. Like other campus activists, I was astonished that the ax had fallen not on leading student activists but on two teachers who had played no direct role in campus protests. Greatly disturbed, a week after the dismissals, the Sanggunian wrote an open letter decrying them as arbitrary, unjust, and an infringement on academic freedom. We demanded the immediate reinstatement of the two. It was too late, however, to mobilize a student protest since summer vacation had begun. We received no response from the administration, but we did not intend to let the matter die.
SUMMER VACATION 1971 was not a rest period for activist groups. The moderates busied themselves preparing for mass actions linked to the inauguration of the Con-Con on June 1. KKK, having moved to the NatDem camp, went further and dissolved itself so its members, led by Sangunnian chair Alex Aquino and fellow seminarian William (Bill) Begg, could join KM-Ateneo en masse. The Sanggunian, now closely coordinating with the NatDem groups, set up a Nationalist Corps as a volunteer brigade to promote the political and cultural renovation of the Ateneo. Over a hundred students enlisted. Their initial assignment was to attend summer seminars for politicization, for which the corps put out a pamphlet, Basic Readings in Nationalism. While summer classes were starting, units of the corps headed to the provinces of Bataan and Quezon in a “learn from the masses” program of “integration” with peasants—to learn from, identify with, and politicize them. Within Ateneo, the corps also cultivated ties with the maintenance staff, sponsoring an activist play with a political message. I signed up for the corps but was able to attend only a few sessions of the summer seminars and could not participate in the integration exercise. I could not afford to commute to Ateneo often, much less travel outside Manila. Since I did not have classes in the summertime, I received very little pocket money from Dad.
The administration was also active that summer. We learned that a student activist from Ateneo High School had been denied admission to the college of arts and sciences and that two Ateneo workers had been dismissed on short notice. We also received a report that two American Jesuits tore down protest posters on the Simbulan–de Guzman issue late one night. The Sanggunian issued a manifesto protesting “the systematic suppression of progressive political views and activities” and the “autocratic structures” in the university, accusing the administration of “clerico-fascism.”
The term was soon to become a byword on campus, appearing on leaflets, SOB statements, posters, and graffiti on building and toilet walls. It popped up in speeches and newspaper articles. In a statement titled “Dissent and Clerico-fascism,” MAGAT attacked “the covert use—by a priest or a nun—of power that has accrued to administrative position by virtue of the paraphernalia of the religious life hitherto associated with otherworldly affairs, in order to suppress any movement for radical change within sectarian educational institutions.” MAGAT declared: “To expose clerico-fascism is a service to intellectual freedom.”
Girding for what appeared to be an upcoming confrontation with the administration on the Simbulan–de Guzman case in the coming school year, the Sanggunian, together with NatDem activist groups and some workers and teachers, held a
