MANILA, Philippines — Days ahead of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s first State of the Nation Address, there was a possibility that Commonwealth Avenue — for decades a venue of SONA protests — would be empty of rallyists after the Philippine National Police arbitrarily declared a "no-rally zone" along the busy highway leading to the Batasang Pambansa.
It was not until Quezon City Mayor Joy Belmonte’s eleventh-hour save that there was indication that the right to protest and seek redress from the government would be respected, although limited to a space several kilometers from where Congress would be meeting in joint session for the SONA.
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On Monday, part of Commonwealth will be filled with protesters shouting for their issues to be heard: People are hungry; commodities have become even more expensive; many are jobless or are underemployed; the transportation sector is in crisis and human rights remain dirty words.
Kilometers away from Commonwealth Avenue, an unassuming coffee shop at the end of a row of apartments on Malingap Street in Teacher’s Village, Quezon City has become a safe space for discussion on the current political state of the country.
Life on Roast opens its literal gates in the late afternoon to those seeking good coffee from Kalinga province and to people willing to talk about the issues besetting the country. Although the shop has a barista, people come to the small space as much for conversation as they do for the coffee.
The low stools and tables were picked for comfort and to stimulate a more conducive environment for telling stories, owner Nadja De Vera, a theater artist, tells Philstar.com.
“We started as a pop up wherever we could stay. One of our advocacies then was to have our space back, to have our streets back, return them to the people — the spaces to have discussions,” she says in an interview in Filipino on July 22.
Life on Roast is an offshoot of "Life on Rolls", a project of one of the owners.
During the pandemic, they transformed their apartment into a physical store, where they serve Kalinga brew from beans sourced from farmers and vegan cookies made by other small businesses in the neighborhood. As much as Life on Roast fosters a sense of communuity, it also seeks to be a home for discourse on social issues.
Life on Roast has hosted film showings on Martial Law and discussion by advocacy groups on issues of farmers, workers, and other sectors. During the elections, they served as a hub for volunteers for presidential candidate Leni Robredo, who lost to Marcos Jr., the dictator's son.
*Michelle, a patron of the café, says he frequents the coffee shop with his friends who are artists and students like himself. "I’ve been going to these kinds of places ever since, since that is my ethos as a person," he shares to Philstar.com, adding he enjoys learning more about the country.
Wishlist: Stop red-tagging
Nadja is aware that they are treading dangerous waters with the current political climate, where red-tagging — labeling people and organizations as sympathizers and supporters of the communist armed revolution for speaking out and caring about people's issues — is rampant and where those accusations have led to harassment and harm.
So far, the café has been safe from those accusations but at least one patron has been accused of being a member of the New People’s Army, when, the shop owner says with exasperation: "She’s just going to have her coffee!"
But she says they are ready should the baseless accusations be made: There is nothing for them to be afraid of, anyway. They're just a coffee shop.
Life on Roast owner Nadja de Vera pours coffee made from Kalinga beans. The shop consumes around a kilogram a day of coffee.
They just put up the shop to assert their rights to "have a space to learn and know the history (of the country), understand the plight (of the people)."
Their wish for Marcos’ first SONA is for red-tagging to stop. "Allow the people — activists or civilian — or even students to learn the history. Red-tagging should not bar the people from seeking answers," she adds.
For farmers — whom the shop has been helping through proceeds and donations — they wish for genuine agrarian reform and for Marcos to rethink his promise of bringing rice prices down to P20 per kilo, a campaign vow that earned praises but also raised questions on how that would be achieved.
Nadja says, of course, they wish to have more accessible and cheaper goods, especially rice, but the president "must also think about the situation of our farmers."
“Lower the prices but increase the wages of the consumers then support the farmers,” she says, adding they also wish for genuine agrarian reform so farmers can till their own land.
But she admitted that their expectations for the SONA are low.
No stopping the discourse
For Michelle, discourse such as this only opens up more questions.
The students says that discourse has always been like that, questions over questions over questions "until we reach a silver lining."
"But discourse does not stop forever, and it should not just stop. While the world turns, the truth does too, trends change and there is always new discourse," he adds.
Nadja shares that during the election campaign, they brought the discourse to communities — an experience she recalls was humbling and enlightening.
"You will face different kinds of people, not all will agree with you but if they see that you are a human too, you get hungry and you get hurt, it gets easier to explain where you are coming from. There comes openness to explain," she says.
This unique plant box and other quirky (and functional) decor at Life on Roast add to an atmosphere of openness and acceptance.
They also met communities that do not like activists and where many refused to talk to them.
But some were willing to talk to and get to know them. "That is where we learned why they believe what they do, or why they cannot see [the issues we were raising] or why they think [Marcos] will save the country from our plight," she says.
Marcos ran on a promise that unity that will solve the pandemic crisis as it will all other crises. Although vague and lacking in concrete platforms, it won him a majority vote of 31 million. As he assembles his Cabinet members, he has decided to sit as agriculture chief, saying he recognizes the gravity of the issue the department is facing.
As he addresses Congress and the nation as president, he will be protected by 21,000 police officers — a deployment size not seen in previous presidencies. Despite the tight security, activists and advocates like Nadja said this should not stop people from acknowledging and discussing the issues the nation faces.
Nadja says they at Life on Roast will continue to assert the people’s basic rights and to provide a safe space for the discussion and assertion of those rights.
"What’s important now is to push forward the truth that the people are hungry, that wages are low, and that there is a food crisis, all commodities are expensive because if we will not forward [those issues] and we do not assert, who else will do it for the country?"
The Commission on Human Rights has reminded law enforcement to protect the people’s rights to peaceful protest and to always exercise maximum tolerance during such events, a call that is often left unheard at crowd dispersals.
“As the Chief Executive presents the state of the nation and discusses its agenda and accomplishments through the SONA, it is equally important for the government to also provide space and enable the right of the people to peacefully assembly in recognition of the essence of public participation in national affairs and as part of a functioning democracy,” CHR Executive Director Jacqueline de Guia says.
If the government neglects to provide and protect that space, it falls on places like Life on Roast and other small businesses to help provide that space and for the communities that patronize them to push back and to protect their spaces. — with Jonathan de Santos
*Name has been changed following request of subject.