"What happened to those in the forefront of the First Quarter Storm?"
"What happened to those in the forefront of the First Quarter Storm?"
There’s a classic photo taken 50 years ago where a young woman is shown leading the charge on Malacañang Palace in late afternoon”•or was it early evening”•of Jan. 30, 1970. She stood atop a commandeered firetruck, with what appeared to be a handkerchief tied around her head, and pointing her left hand in the direction of Malacañang, seemingly goading those behind her to attack the seat of Executive power by shouting at the top of her lungs the popular radical slogan at the time, “Makibaka, huwag matakot!”
For activists of varied political persuasions then, Jan. 30, 1970 was their baptism of fire. The rally on that day consisted of the militant national democrats grouped under the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK); the Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataang Pilipino (MPKP) and its allied organization, the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation (BRPF), who were also radicals but gravitated towards Marxism-Leninism but not Mao Zedong Thought, unlike the KM-SDK; and the social democrats, among them Lakasdiwa, who were considered “moderates” and “reformists”.
After holding a rally at Plaza Miranda, they marched toward Malacañang Palace and soon engaged police and soldiers in hit-and-run battles with homemade bombs called pillboxes, Molotov cocktails, sticks and stones and whatever else they could lay their hands on.
When the dust had settled, four young activists were killed, and many more injured as the Marcos regime unleashed the police and the military to quell the revolt.
Jan. 30, 1970 was preceded three days before by another demonstration led by the same groups in front of Congress. After Marcos delivered his State-of-the Nation Address (SONA), a commotion took place when he was about to leave. Then all hell broke loose as police armed with truncheons managed to disperse the crowd, but not without some participants cornered inside an IKOT jeepney from UP and beaten black and blue by antiriot police. Among them was my elder brother, Antonio, known to his comrades as “Tonyhil” and the Secretary General of the SDK, who we saw the day after at the UP Infirmary in Diliman writhing in great pain from truncheon blows all over his body.
The two mass demonstrations in January 1970 were followed soon after by more of the same in the next two months, thus leading to the description of the turbulent period as the “First Quarter Storm of 1970” or FQS.
Journalist-poet Jose “Pete” Lacaba captured the atmosphere of the rallies, the mood of the participants and what really happened out in the streets during the first three months of 1970 in a slim volume, “Days of Disquiet, Nights of Rage.” I refer the reader to his work and to other first-hand accounts of the demonstrations to better understand this crucial period in our political history.
The FQS was a wake-up call for the Marcos regime as it revealed pent-up grievances that had simmered below the surface. It was the logical outcome of protests against the Vietnam War, campus unrest triggered by tuition increases and the demand for the government to uphold academic freedom, and the resurgence of nationalist and anti-American sentiment arising from unequal treaties with a former colonial master, including extra-territoriality rights granted to American servicemen from US military bases in Clark and Subic that allowed those who had violated our laws to be quietly shipped back to the US without facing prosecution in our courts.
The FQS demonstrations and others that took place well into 1971 and 1972 rattled the Establishment and undermined the capability of the powers-that-be to rule in the old way. The political unrest during this period eventually led to the declaration of martial law in September 1972. With authoritarian rule, the Marcos regime consolidated political power by abolishing Congress and ruling by decree. In the process, it arrested and detained thousands of political opponents and activists, gave birth to the phenomenon that became known as “crony capitalism” where those close to the Palace enriched themselves from overpriced projects and behest loans from government banks. But the levee eventually broke and the end of authoritarian rule came in February 1986 via “People Power” at EDSA.
Today, 50 years later, the First Quarter Storm is likely to be remembered only by those who directly took part in it, or watched it unfold on TV news. But this event marked a turning point in our contemporary political history, as it showed that street protests can spark change for the better, maybe not at once, but over time, through reforms that address fundamental issues of corruption and mass poverty.
So what happened to those in the forefront of FQS 50 years ago?
The woman who was captured on camera 50 years ago seemingly screaming at the top of her voice to attack Malacañang Palace was Leonor “Liling” Magtolis. She is now Leonor Briones, the Education secretary under the Duterte administration. She was the National Treasurer under the Estrada administration and later founded Social Watch as a platform to see to it that public funds are put to good use rather than squirreled away in private pockets or secret bank accounts.
A handful of those who helped organize the street protest during the FQS are still with the underground movement. But others have opted to leave the movement for ideological and personal reasons and are now working in the public and private sectors.
That tells us that the struggle for social change can take place not only in the jungle fastnesses of the Sierra Madre or in the streets of Manila, but also in the day-to-day work of government, the private sector and civil society or the organized citizenry. If the First Quarter Storm of 1970 demanded radical change all at once through armed revolution, that same demand for meaningful change can be continued with new forms of political struggle and organization to put an end to pervasive corruption and poverty.
