Battle of Mendiola: A personal view

In the late afternoon of Jan. 30, 1970, about 10,000 students who were massed before the old Congress of the Philippines building in Manila had no inkling that history would be made a few hours later and their lives would be forever changed, some more than others, before dawn the next day.

Change was not exactly in the air. I was there, an unsuspecting UP law sophomore drawn into the fray, and I should know. We were rallying in protest because four days before, on Jan. 26, a demonstration in the very same place had been violently dispersed by the police. It was something that had never happened before in Philippine history. President Ferdinand Marcos had just opened Congress when he was literally mobbed as he emerged from the building, he and his wife having  to flee in a humiliating manner never seen — before or since — of a Filipino president.

Marcos’s disgrace was the signal for the police to attack the surging crowd with vengeful fury. The students paid back in kind and the result was a bloody melee that was played out live on TV and radio and splashed across headlines for the coming days and months.

Media was quick to condemn police brutality and play up allegations that Marcos had cheated massively in the recent presidential election to secure an unprecedented second term. A joint probe was launched by the two houses of Congress to get down to the roots of student unrest. The administration blamed the usual suspects — communists and subversives — for instigating the confrontation.

Little did anybody suspect that this one bloody incident would lead to almost three years of non-stop intrigue and confrontations that would culminate in a dictatorship that would last 14 years, devastate the economy and destroy thousands of lives. Any thought of People Power or bloodless revolution would have been laughed off the stage. A Chinese, Vietnamese or Cuban scenario seemed more fearfully plausible.

Just two months after his disputed November 1969 electoral victory, Marcos’s presidency was under heavy siege and seemed to be on the verge of collapse. The defeated Liberal Party opposition sided with the students and all but declared war on the president it accused of cheating Sergio Osmeña, Jr. and, more ominously, of secretly plotting to install strong-man rule in the style of Latin American banana republics.

Among the largely student-based activist ranks, hardly mass movements at this point, the lines were sharply drawn along two lines: a) Catholics and moderates calling for a Constitutional Convention to ban Marcos or his wife from staying in power beyond 1973 or the end of his second non-renewable term, and b) nationalists of various persuasions preaching more militant action, including what radicals called “National Democracy,” a euphemism for Maoist-style armed revolution.

Early that fateful afternoon, the two sides appeared united in laying the blame for the Jan. 26 crackdown on Marcos, but they never let up on polemics about their competing political programs. There were catcalls and near-disturbances, but the fragile tone of unity was kept. Towards the end of the demonstration, the microphone was held by the moderates and their agitated leaders, wary of another clash with the police, loudly pronounced the gathering ended as the sun began to sink into Manila Bay.

As if by design, there arose a loud clamor from a section of the demonstrators,  particularly from students of  the University of the Philippines and Philippine College of Commerce. “Malacañang! Malacañang!” The call resonated as a group hoisting a Philippine flag started moving in the direction of Ayala Bridge. The unspoken objective was to march to the Palace-by-the-Pasig, some two kilometers away, and bring the message of defiance right to Marcos’s doorsteps.

The leaders with the microphones kept pleading for the rallyists to go home because the rally, they insisted, had already ended. All to no avail. The march to Malacañang was well on the way and picking up speed and participants along the way.

I found myself swept up by this irresistible tide of humanity. Morale was high. We sang and chanted protest songs. We were out to confront Marcos. It was not enough that we had vented our anger before the Congress building. We felt our voices had to be heard in Malacañang and in Plaza Miranda, the nation’s Hyde Park. Nothing less.

It was getting dark. From Ayala Bridge, we turned right to J.P. Laurel, past the San Miguel Pro-Cathedral and the San Miguel Brewery compound (years later the Borloloy Palace). As we approached Malacañang, in front of what is now the Premier Guest House, the street lamps on the fence were suddenly switched off. This was taken as a provocation and soon there was a flurry of stone-throwing that smashed these lamps.

There was loud and incessant chanting. “Makibaka, Huwag Matakot!” Over and over again, punctuated by gunfire and explosions in the distance. We felt we were dodging bullets and the more militant rallyists kept charging to and retreating from the massive steel fence that separated us from the Palace.

Unknown to us in that section, farther up the street near Mendiola Street itself, some rallyists had commandered a red firetruck sent to disperse them with a water cannon. They drove it straight through the gate in front of the Administrative Building. It was a breach of security that we were to learn later sent Marcos into panic.

As an eyewitness within the Palace, Juan Ponce Enrile, the defense minister, recalled in his 2012 memoir that Marcos suspected a coup against him could have been underway. His generals were nowhere to be found; it took them hours to materialize by Marcos’s side, one of them so drunk he was fired days later. Just to make sure, Imelda and the three children had to be hurriedly evacuated through the backdoor to the river to the safety of a navy ship out in Manila Bay. Not since the Quezons fled Manila in the heels of the Japanese invaders had a Filipino president been in fear of his and his family’s life.

As Enrile would note, Marcos came close to declaring martial law that night. But cooler heads prevailed upon him not to push the panic button. They correctly assessed that no coup was in the works and strong police action would be enough to quell the disturbances.

The commandeered firetruck could had been the driving wedge of a coup, but it was not. Its occupants were mostly from the Lava wing of the radical movement, all with red bands on their heads, some carrying fighting sticks, all chanting revolutionary slogans. One of their leaders would later become a top official of the Joseph Estrada regime.

I believed then as I do now that nothing more than youthful bravado, if not a wild dash of adventurism, was involved. Even those daring rallyists in that firetruck could not have known the seriousness of their offense or the mortal danger they faced. Had they veered right from the gate and careened straight into the Palace, they would have triggered violent bursts of gunfire and perished in a massacre. The frightened loyalists around their president couldn’t have taken chances. What if the truck had been packed with heavy explosives and blown the Palace into smithereens? The suicide bombers of Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan were decades into the future.

I was in a daze about what followed next. I don’t think our polygot group stayed longer than 30 minutes in front of the Palace. The explosions got so menacing we were soon running for our lives towards Arguelles Street, where Cory Aquino and Fidel Ramos would reside as future presidents in an elegant art deco mansion after driving Marcos into exile.

We were running for our very lives. Bullets flew thick and fast as we fled in all directions. This was the real thing. Just a few days past, we had little to fear. We faced nothing more than the icy glares and wooden truncheons of policemen. We only stood to be beaten up or mauled. But now we could get killed. Bullets don’t discriminate. When you’re hit, you’re hit and you could die. (The night’s final toll would come to four students killed and scores wounded. They were the movement’s first martyrs and hundreds more would be killed in the coming years.) 

Finding ourselves on the foot of  the small and barely recognizable Mendiola Bridge, we erected a barricade to hold off the advance of Marcos’s troops from the Palace. We held the line for some time until the government’s monopoly of force sent us scampering in all directions, this time for good.

Because the Palace siege was unplanned, there was no fallback plan. Everything had to be improvised. It was tough political education under fire. The good thing was we found ourselves in the perfect setting — in the heart of University Belt that adjoined the Palace — and our original ranks were swelled by spontaneous support from the nearby dormitories and boarding houses. PCC was on Lepanto, some three blocks away and it was a bastion of militant nationalism, later the principal object of Marcos’s wrath over and above UP Diliman itself.

How did the students fight back? With crudely and hastily made sticks and pillboxes. Those were about the most serious weapons in our arsenal. We fought a defensive war by overturnning Mayor Tony Villegas’s concrete flower beds on Recto Avenue. Some abandoned cars and jeeps were cannibalized, their tires turned into bonfires that gave off the pungent smell of burning rubber and the unmistakable look of an insurrection.      

As a far as I know, there was no command structure from the students’ side. Leadership and action were fluid and spontaneous. We faced a common enemy, that’s all we knew. Someone proposed something like soliciting food and everybody followed. People were generous and kind.

Some quarters would be quick to romanticize the events of Jan. 30-31, 1970 as the beginning of the so-called First Quarter Storm (FQS) and to claim credit for allegedly planning and leading the heroic battle. Latter generations of activists would be mesmerized by this seminal event, feel sorry they were born too late to miss the action; some would seek to replicate FQS and, of course, utterly fail because history seldom repeats itself in the same form.

Speaking for myself, what actually happened was a practical political education of less grandiose dimensions. We were simply swept into the unfolding drama and responded in the best way we could, mainly to survive and to care for each other. We faced a lopsided fight that we never doubted the other side would win by sheer force of arms. Although we were fated to lose the battle at hand, we knew that there was a much larger war for freedom that lay ahead and which we wanted to win.  

I believe we acquitted ourselves in the face of trial and adversity. The best Filipino traits of courage, selflessness and compassion were evident under siege and behind the barricades. There was no abusive behavior, no overt assertion of authority or power. There was marked vigilance not to allow looters and arsonists to steal the moment from our legitimate protest.

The spirit of  brotherly democracy prevailed. We called each other Kasama or “Comrade.” I was lost among strangers, none from my UP group and no one I knew by face or name. Yet we all trusted and protected each other. We knew who were our enemies and they were shooting at us.

We lost track of time. We heard news crackling on the radio about troops being ordered into battle to flush us out. There were repeated warnings over bullhorns from Metrocom for us to disperse and go home or we would pay for the grim consequences of defiance.

All throughout the night, I never ate although food kept being passed around. Under attack, I learned, the first thing to go was your appetite. You functioned on adrenalin.

I remember the exact moment around midnight when the defensive line or barricade on Mendiola Bridge finally succumbed to the advancing police and military. There was nonstop hail of bullets, deafening gunfire as we scrambled on the sidewalk on the left side of Recto Avenue towards Lepanto and Morayta.

The troops were in hot pursuit and we kept our heads low as we fled Mendiola. I remember running along Elmer Ordonez, the UP professor, and screaming “This is Vietnam!” He nodded and later quoted me in his accounts from his exile in Canada. We were ships passing in the night and I lost him as fast as we ran into each other.

Feeling cornered, the group I was running with turned right into an alley leading to the Laperal Apartments. It was a warren of dormitories with all doors closed, with very little light to illuminate our way and our pursuers closely behind us. Someone saw a steel ladder hanging from one side; it was a fire escape. He clambered up and I and many others followed. We ended up on the roof, lying in prone position and trembling, hoping the pursuers would not follow us and the bullets in the air would not land on our backs.

After a lull in gunfire, indicating that the troops may have gone away, we quickly climbed down the ladder to ground level. But another commotion sent a flood of students in our direction and sent us toward any door we could find.

One door opened and I was among 10 or so guys who squeezed in before it  was shut. We rushed up four flights of stairs, knocking at closed rooms, fearful that the police would catch up.

When the door of one room opened, I pushed myself in and into the bottom of the first bed I came upon. There were three of us there reduced to total silence. A loud and threatening knock forced the room’s occupant to open. He was asked if students had sought shelter in his room. Overhearing this exchange, we shook with horror under the bed. But the room occupant said no and the police took his word. When the door closed, I wanted to jump with joy but I just bit my tongue. Prudence was the better part of valor.

Down in that bed, we stayed motionless for the next few hours, wary that the police could come back again. I and my companions did not move until daylight came and we felt sure danger had passed.

In our haste we failed to exchange names and addresses. It was this way all night. We touched each other intimately at the intersection point of life and death, but shared nothing but our common humanity and silent tears and the fierce belief that something was very wrong in the land and must be changed for the better.

As we emerged into Recto Avenue, I saw the debris of war — burned tires, overturned flower boxes, garbage cans and assorted flotsam turned into barricades. Walking towards España to catch the bus to Diliman, I knew that my life had changed forever.

I did not go back to law class. I went straight to UP’s Vinzons Hall, from then on the unofficial movement headquarters, there to meet the veterans of last night’s battle to plan the next mass action. I had no premonition this would lead me to quit law studies and get pushed into exile. The imposition of martial law in two years’ time would reshape all our lives and Philippine society itself.               

Forty-three years after this baptism of fire, what have we learned? In what ways did our country change for better or worse?

First, the sharp upsurge of militancy after 1970 fatally tilted the ideological balance from moderate nationalism to Maoist radicalism. Angry rhetoric and street action favored the nascent Communist Party of Joma Sison against the Rectonian nationalists and the old Lava party.

Second, Sison’s early capture of the protest movement through his surrogates foreclosed any centrist or democratic opposition to Marcos’ dictatorship. This view would hold for the next decade or so until Ninoy Aquino’s 1983 assassination provided the impetus for a potent democratic challenge to the communist-dominated underground movement that would result in the former’s 1986 victory at Edsa.

The polarization favored both ideological extremes, forcing moderates and independents into a brutal choice between Marcos’s US-backed dictatorship with its dishonest pandering to the Rectistas and the Soviets against Joma and fellow travelers of the left who imposed “more Maoists than Mao” politics on their hapless allies. No wonder we have desaparicidos and killing fields on both sides of these extremes.

Personally, I believe this swing to extremes left no room for unsung patriots like Jose W. Diokno, Nemesio Prudente and others to come up with a sensible and independent alternative to Marcos and Joma. The flawed but worthy Filipino democratic tradition nurtured from 1896 to the time of Recto and Tanada was the main casualty of this swing to the extremes, which  first produced the politics of intolerance and has been resulted in the post-Edsa descent into irrelevance, posturing and banality.

Because the door was closed to democrats and independents, our politics would never escape the confines and dynamics of traditional politics. Indeed, Philippine politics returned to status quo ante after the brief shining moment that was the Edsa revolution. The dreaded and unacceptable alternative to old-style Liberal-Nacionalista hocus-pocus was dictatorship of the proletariat. So why change at all?          

Third, Ninoy Aquino could not but emerge as Marcos’s antithesis and sole viable mainstream alternative, the classic traditional politician who could reach out to the alienated youth and moderates because he never caved in to Marcos. Unfortunately, death by assassination was the price of Ninoy’s amazing reinvention of himself that he knew would be his passport to power after Marcos. But his wife and son would benefit from the immense political capital that came out of his martyrdom.

Fourth, martial law was a textbook case of a country on trial before posterity. We were judged many times before and failed — in fighting and losing to the Spaniards, Americans and Japanese because our real enemies were (are) always among us. Guess what? More or less the same families always collaborated and survived. Heroes in this country die young and never live long enough to take power. That’s why survival is the first law of politics. Grandsons and daughters of quislings are still on center stage, laying claim to the presidency and the biggest fortunes as a natter of right. We all know who they are, but they have no fear of exposure and no shame. They’ve always had their way, so why worry? So far.

Fifth, we are still smarting from Jim Fallows’ lacerating thesis that ours is a “damaged culture.” I met Jim when he came over to validate his observations, some drawn from Peter Stanley’s scathing book on the Philippine elite’s cynical and systematic manipulation of colonial relations to favor itself at the expense of the people. I attended Peter’s lecture at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York that was marked by the walk-out of a furious Filipino senator who couldn’t take the scorching words about her pedigreed class and family.

Neither Fallows or Stanley meant us any harm, but they wrote about certain painful truths that stand in the way of our deliverance. My only comment during my friendly exchange with Jim one night at La Coupole in Makati was that all countries, including the United States, are “damaged cultures” or products of unsavory, contradictory, even fascist tendencies. No country ever had a monopoly of ideals or patriotism; there are scoundrels everywhere, some more than in others. American scoundrels were as likely as Filipino scoundrels to misrepresent their people. This was long before the Tea Party and the more outlandish culture wars of the right gave American liberals more embarrassing black eyes to worry about.

As a Filipino, I have a stake in my birth right and will never yield to the naysayers. I believe we will ultimately find a way out of the horrible fate and bad cards dealt us by history. It will take time but the heavens cannot be forever deaf to our prayers. We are not doomed until we believe we are lost forever and just accept the rotten present as the only way this nation can survive. To survive, yes, but to grow and build a truly just society is another thing. We are pledged to nothing less than survival and growth as a nation of freedom and progress for all Filipinos.  

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Email the author at noslen7491@gmail.com