Subversive Lives. Susan F. Quimpo
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 small protest march on campus.
TOWARD THE END of summer classes, the Sanggunian, radical activists, and some moderate groups resolved to call for a general and indefinite boycott of classes beginning on July 9, the first day of the semester. We tried to keep the decision under wraps, but our feverish activity could not hide the fact that something was afoot. A few days before July 9, the officers of the alumni association, who usually did not involve themselves in student affairs, requested a meeting with the Sanggunian to discuss controversies on campus. After hearing us out, they urged dialogue with the administration before any drastic action was taken. But they were too late.
Early on July 9, we set up a picket in front of Gate 3 to announce the boycott. On campus, the first issue of Pandayan (a Filipino term meaning “anvil” and the new name of the Guidon) was distributed, carrying as its headline story the Simbulan–de Guzman case. At around 10 o’clock in the morning, the Sanggunian set up a microphone in the college quad and called upon students to boycott classes until the administration reinstated Simbulan and de Guzman. With calls of “Boycott! Boycott!” Sanggunian members and activist leaders, myself included, took turns lambasting the administration. Apart from the Simbulan–de Guzman dismissal, other student complaints, such as the increase in tuition and the lack of progress in Filipinization, were voiced. Activists fanned out to different classrooms to appeal to wavering students to heed the boycott. Within less than an hour, however, it became apparent that the boycott wasn’t holding—over half of the students were in class. The boycott fizzled out.
Ateneans then got a taste of how tough Father Cruz would be. The next day, the parents of seven student leaders received telegrams asking them to come for a talk regarding the possible expulsion of their sons. The seven were leading members of the Sanggunian, including its president Alex Aquino, vice-president Mario Jalandoni, senior council chairman and SDK activist Jonathan (Jonat) de la Cruz and junior representative Brigido (Jun) Simon Jr., Pandayan editor Manolet Dayrit, Nationalist Corps chairman and leading KM activist Bill Begg, and SDK militant Michael (Mike) Molina. They were charged with “preventing or threatening students or faculty members from discharging duties or attending classes.” Through a stroke of luck, I was not included among them. The bell for the class break had rung when it was my turn to take the microphone, so technically I did not disrupt classes.
“The original act of injustice is now being compounded with new acts of injustice. And so I must speak.” Dr. Bienvenido Lumbera, the highly respected chairman of the Philippine Studies Program and a member of the committee on rank and tenure, addressed these words to a packed convocation of students and teachers in the cafeteria. Breaking the seal of secrecy of the committee, he revealed that they had not recommended terminating the contracts of Simbulan and de Guzman. They had indeed denied Simbulan tenure, and his political views had figured prominently in this decision. In being dismissed, however, the two had been “victims of Father Araneta’s undue haste in dispensing with their services.” Himself a MAGAT member, Lumbera was convinced that the dismissals had been due to their leftist political views. He charged, “There seem to be elements in the academic community who are reluctant to declare themselves openly against the national democratic movement, but are ready to lend a hidden hand in counteracting it.”
The next day, the Sanggunian called for another boycott of classes, adding the harassment of student leaders to its list of issues. The atmosphere was tense and somewhat intimidating, as the prospect of further disciplinary actions for disrupting classes hung in the air. Relatively few students boycotted, but those who did were highly fired up. After an overcharged teach-in in the main corridor, we burned the effigies of Father Araneta and Father Cruz in the quad. Then about a hundred students marched toward the administration building shouting, “Ibagsak ang kleriko-pasismo! (Down with clerico-fascism!)” Pillboxes exploded nearby. We bounded up the stairs of the building to demand an audience with Father Araneta. The glass doors were locked. Those in front pounded on the doors with their fists until the glass shattered, pieces falling around us. Startled, we retreated back down the stairs and hastily dispersed. It dawned on me a few minutes later, safely away from the scene, that, without planning to, we could have occupied the building and barged into Father Araneta’s office. Instead, our protest lay in shards.
THE ADMINISTRATION HELD firm. Simbulan and de Guzman were not reinstated, and disciplinary proceedings went ahead against the seven student leaders. Moreover, the administration banned convocations in the cafeteria, confining them to the quad or the out-of-the-way fourth-floor auditorium. It was clear to me that the Araneta-Cruz tandem was grimly determined to stamp out radical activism on campus. Students seldom saw either of them on the college grounds. They entrusted much of the work of maintaining order to the new dean of students, Hilarion Vergara. Vergara was a contrast to the youthful and hefty previous dean, Rafael Chee Kee. He was elderly, bespectacled, and deceptively frail-looking, and he had earned a reputation as a stern prefect of discipline at Ateneo High School under Father Cruz. Dean Vergara was an assiduous watchdog. At every protest, or even when one was still being planned, he was always around, observing, listening, taking mental notes, and from time to time, like a padre de familia, warning or reproving student militants.
Ateneo students and workers protest the “death of academic freedom” in a march on campus following the dismissal of two progressive faculty