May 11, 2017

Kas 1 THX-1

REACTION PAPER

Last March 27, 2017, the History Department conducted an educational discussion and
forum about the First Quarter Storm Movement and Diliman Commune during the early 1970’s.
The event had three main speakers namely, Sir G. Francisco Guiang, Sir G. Bonifacio Ilagan
and Sir Roland Simbulan. Most of the time, the speakers did not really have a formal flow of
their talks. Instead, they narrated their firsthand experiences and the sequencing of events that
transpired before. And these are what I learned:

The First Quarter Storm occurred in the first three months of 1970 and was the period of
wide demonstrations and heavy protests against the government spearheaded by students.
Aside from this was the Diliman Commune, a nine-day long movement of February 1971 (no
classes), which showed the militant solidarity of the whole UP community of the faculty, staff and
students, alongside with the jeepney transport workers fighting for the rollback of oil price and
academic freedom. The military even entered the campus and dormitories and the Diliman
commune stood firm to guard and fight for themselves. Judy Taguiwalo even created notes on
the day to day happenings during those nine days. The UP community unitedly stood against
the administration by demanding from the dictator.

Hearing their stories and experiences, the ED left us three main take-aways or points of
learning. First is that the student movement is a long term progress of activism. It isn’t
something that is just suddenly there or just appears from nowhere. Second, let us give
recognition to many people like Judy Taguiwalo, Bernabe Buscayno, etc who stood against the
dictator and had bravely led and fought for the academic freedom we are experiencing now. And
lastly, what we could do now in the present is to keep the fire of activism burning within
ourselves. As students of UP, let us be patient to inform people through different means about
the First Quarter Storm, Diliman Commune, and human rights abuses during Martial Law with
information packed by credible sources to fight against Historical Revisionism. The fact that I
wasn’t conscious enough about the FQS and DC saddens my character as an Iska but thanks
to this very informative and insightful event for feeding me first hand information and learnings.