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With the sense that the official UP centenary celebration has
glossed over the story of dissent in the academe, the faculty group
(Contend) has plans of issuing a book on the radical and activist
tradition on campus by year’s end.
Former members of the U.P-based Samahang
Demokratikong Kabataan (SDK) that broke away from the group and then
merged again with the vanguard youth group Kabataang Makabayan (KM)
have already come out with their own story in the book Militant But
Groovy which we reviewed earlier (4/26).
A former student in my literature class,
Perfecto Tera Jr. (known to readers as Jun Terra) was mentioned in
the book as one of the KM original members who were expelled for
“splittist” activities. He and others formed SDK in 1968 with
Sixto Carlos as chairman. Jun eventually left the SDK and decided to
try his luck in Europe as a self-exiled writer/artist with Paris his
base.
I wrote to Jun who has been writing for the
literary page of Sunday Times Magazine to tell his own story about
his role in the youth groups. These he remembered: “The core of
the original SDK was composed of the members of the KM Cultural
Bureau—effectively the propaganda arm of the organization which I
headed. Members of the Bureau came from UE, Lyceum, UP, PCC and Cebu.”
He recalled that one of the most successful
performances of the group in Manila was during the founding
conference of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism (MAN)
with Sen. Lorenzo Tañada as chairman. The group performed Jun’s
Tagalog adaptation of “Waiting for Lefty” (by Clifford Odets)
called “Welga.” Later they toured barrios in Nueva Ecija,
Laguna, Rizal, Cebu and Pampanga, performing and holding teach-ins.
As Jun put it, “When the forces within the
movement re-aligned, the KM Cultural Bureau members became charter
members of the SDK.” Many of the KM members in Manila universities
went with the SDK because of “its broader appeal.”
Recalling earlier days, Jun said the Scaup
(Student Cultural Association of the University of the
Philippines)” was formed by Joe Sison and Pete Daroy with their
classmates in the graduate school which included Deanna Ongpin
Recto, Patricia Melendres, Gerry Acay, Rosemarie Magno, etc. They
were all students of Dr. Ricardo Pascual, who was, at the time, the
target of the investigations mounted by. Rep. Leonardo Perez’s
CAFA to look into so-called anti-Filipino activities at UP Even if I
was not a graduate student they invited me to join the Scaup.”
This was in 1961.
Dr. Pascual’s students through Scaup came to
his defense on the day he was to face the CAFA investigators. Jun
Terra recalled that in organizing a student demonstration to
Congress Jose Maria Sison and Pete Daroy (later professor of
Philippine literature) met with fraternity leaders like Reynato Puno
(now chief justice), Heherson Alvarez (later senator), Hermie Dumlao
(later deputy minister of education) of Alpha Phi Beta, Dion la
Serna of Upsilon Sigma Phi, Horacio “Boy” Morales (later NDF
head) of Beta Sigma, and heads of sororities and other groups to
plan what would be the second protest march outside Diliman.
(The first was the March 1951 rally to Malacañang
to protest the ouster of UP president Bienvenido Gonzalez by
President Quirino. Perez wrote the blistering manifesto against
Qurino. In 1961 he enjoyed another kind of fame as McCarthyite
witch-hunter.)
Jun recalled: “The response from the faculty
and students was immediate and enthusiastic. Having just come from a
private, Catholic boys school, UST High, where everything was sedate
and apolitical all this was exciting for me. The battle cry of the
demonstration was Academic Freedom.” It was in effect a dress
rehearsal for the mass rallies of the 60s waged by the KM and the
SDK towards the “First Quarter Storm” and the “Diliman
Commune” in the early 70s.
Like many recurring issues on campus, the issue
of academic freedom which occupied the 50s starting with the 1951 UP
rally to Malacañang is again raised by faculty and students
corollary to the issue of commercialization on campus. They are wary
of market-oriented research and administrative practices.
Contend with its alternative book on the
centenary wants to be sure that the chronicle of UP is not just one
official “master narrative.” It believes that the history of UP
must be comprehensive and does not exclude dissenting voices.
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