The Three Anti-Martial Law Rallies in the Philippines in 1977 and My Encounter with Cardinal Sin

The May 1, 1977 Luneta Anti-Martial Law Rally

In 1977, the significant anti-martial law protest rallies were: the May 1 Labor Day rally at Luneta or Rizal Park, the August 25 rally at San Marcelino St., and the September 21 rally at Rizal Avenue (Avenida Rizal).

The May 1 rally wanted to showcase the newfound strength of the Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP) in the Philippine labor sector. The BMP is the precursor of today’s Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU).  It was, however, broken up by the police barely after it started. Taking advantage of the Sunday crowd at the park, the rally participants, numbering around 2,000, surreptitiously assembled at Rizal Park at about 3 pm. However, as they closed ranks, they were either dispersed or arrested.

I myself got picked up, together with my friend Jess Agustin. At that time, Jess and I were working for the National Secretariat of Social Action (NASSA) of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP). We were very close friends, and we decided to attend the rally together. We were shoved into the back seat of a Western Police District (WPD) Toyota patrol car and brought to the landmark WPD headquarters at UN Avenue.

It was a short ride, but I was scared out of my wits. It was my second time to be arrested under martial law. I will not forget the busy chatter of the police radio in the car. The guys at the other end were jabbering about the progress of the dispersal operations. At the headquarters, I saw other rally participants, some of whom I knew personally, who were sitting on the cement floor of a long corridor, waiting to be interrogated.

We were released about 30 minutes later after I bribed our captors with a single pack of cigarettes! We were probably too inconsequential to be detained lengthily. Remarkably, Jess and I summoned enough daring to return to Rizal Park where we saw more activists being accosted by the police. I even saw a diminutive Benedictine nun, whom I knew to be Sr. Noemi Francisco, being twirled around by a cop who had discovered that she had slyly wrapped a long anti martial law protest streamer under her habit from the waist down. This rally, although it lasted very briefly, enabled the radical sector to flex its muscles in preparation for the bigger September 21 rally

The August 25, 1977 San Marcelino Anti-Martial Law Rally

In August 1977, the World Law Congress of the International Congress of Jurists (ICJ) was to be held in Manila. The theme of the congress was "Human Rights as Essential to Progress Toward World Peace Under the Rule of Law."

In the mid-afternoon of August 25, 1977, a symposium was scheduled to be held at the auditorium of St. Theresa's College Manila (STC-Manila) at San Marcelino St.. The stated purpose of the symposium was to discuss the theme of the World Law Congress.

However, the not-so concealed agenda of the organizers, whom I remember were the Association of Major Religious Superiors of the Philippines (AMRSP) and the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) was to hold an anti-martial law rally, which would denounce the widespread human rights violations of the Marcos regime. In the CPP memos calling for this event, it was touted as another big push towards the “rebolusyonaryong sigwa.”  

The crowd that had gathered in the small plaza in front of STC-Manila and Saint Vincent de Paul church was the usual mix of students, laborers, nuns, priests, and seminarians, and was more than 5,000 strong. The square was enclosed by a security wall consisting of a low concrete wall which supported a long row of pointed steel bars, whose tips resembled sharp arrow heads. 

The Philippine Police Disperses the San Marcelino Rally

However, the STC-Manila administration cancelled the use of the auditorium at the last minute. The rally organizers then decided to hold the rally in the plaza itself. The most prominent person in the crowd was Senator Jose W. "Pepe" Diokno.

The rallyists were now getting agitated, as speaker after speaker condemned the martial law regime, using the most poisonous words they could muster. It was around 5 pm. The most cheered and applauded speaker was livewire UP student leader Susan Tagle, who was the emcee.

Tagle regaled the crowd with her sarcastic bombast and acerbic wit.   The speakers, representing the different social sectors, were all this time encouraged by the seeming absence of riot police, and the crowd’s rousing response. They smugly thought the authorities would let this one pass without an incident.

A little after an hour into the rally, the police did arrive, and in full force. They suddenly barged into the enclosed rally site, and lost no time dispersing the protestors with rattan truncheons and water hoses that spewed red colored water. The dye was used by the police to mark and arrest those who attended the rally.  

Tagle grabbed the microphone and tried to rally the troops. She heroically appealed to the protestors to stand their ground, succeeding at this for a brief moment. However, the violence being inflicted by the police was just too much, and bedlam ensued. It was everyone for him/herself, as the crowd tried to flee the riot police.

As the police dispersed the rally, the water soaked Tagle was surrounded by nuns, to prevent her from being arrested. They then boarded a public bus on San Marcelino to get away from the rally site.

However, the police boarded the buses to flush out the rallyists, and soon they spotted Tagle. A scuffle ensued as they dragged her away, with the nuns refusing to give her up.

When she was finally arrested, Susan Tagle was whisked to headquarters and interrogated. The notorious Lt. Rolando Abadilla showed her photos of rallyists, and asked her who were giving her orders. Abadilla was trying to pinpoint the underground operatives who composed the rally's "central command."

Tagle just sneered at her captors and refused to reveal anything. Angered, Abadilla put out his cigarette on one of Susan's palms.

Many demonstrators had no choice but to climb over the pointed steel bars that enclosed the church plaza, lest they get hit by the water cannons and the nasty rattan sticks, or get trampled by the stampede. Very few got out through the main gate, which in any case was too narrow for a crowd that size to quickly pass through.

In the process, many protesters got pierced and lacerated by the razor like tips, and their clothes torn. One female rallyist, Rosario Trono, was pierced through in through in one leg by the steel bars, and she hung upside down the fence helpless. Despite her predicament, the police still trained their powerful hoses at her, as she screamed in pain. 

However, most of the rallyists were young and nimble, and clambered over the wicked fence unhurt.  Once outside, they scampered in all directions on San Marcelino. Many ran to nearby Taft Avenue, where they boarded jeepneys to safety.

The rally was over, with the brutal dispersal lasting just a few minutes. Unfortunately, there were no bystanders that could have served as force-multiplier for the rally, like what would happen in the Rizal Avenue protest action less than a month later. Neither did the captive media cover the event.

This inspiring rally in front of STC-Manila and the Saint Vincent de Paul Church at San Marcelino has scarcely been recorded in Philippine martial law history books, but it certainly occupies a permanent place in Philippine activist lore. It is recalled again and again in reunion after reunion by the now aging Filipino martial law activists.

The 1977 Human Rights Awareness Campaign: My Encounter with Cardinal Sin

About three months before this rally, weekly symposiums about human rights were held in various Left-influenced colleges and universities in Manila and Quezon City.  Known anti-Marcos and anti-martial law personalities, like former senators Jovito R. Salonga and Jose W. Diokno, spoke frequently.

Also leading this human rights awareness campaign were the AMRSP and the NCCP. I was in the secretariat of this effort, which was initially planned in the United Church of Christ of the Philippines (UCCP) building along Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA), right next to the NCCP building. This planning meeting at the UCCP building sometime in October 1977 is very important to me, because it was on that day that I saw my wife-to-be, Loida Buyao, for the first time. But that is another story.

I was given the job of personally inviting Cardinal Jaime Sin to one of these symposiums.  I was then working on a youth survey project for the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), under its Commission on Youth. I had also just completed a one-year contract as Youth Coordinator for the CBCP’s National Secretariat of Social Action (NASSA).

In other words, the higher-ups must have decided that I had enough credentials and stature to ask for an appointment with the Cardinal at his Villa San Miguel residence and invite him to speak at a human rights symposium sponsored by religious radicals. At any rate, these “qualifications” emboldened me enough, so I said yes. I was only 22 years old then.

In those pre-EDSA days, the anti-martial law forces looked to Cardinal Sin as an ally, albeit with mixed feelings. The reason behind this ambivalence was Cardinal Sin's policy of "critical collaboration" towards the Marcos regime. It plainly meant that Cardinal Sin was approaching the regime and the Philippine democracy movement on an issue-to-issue basis. This was not acceptable to those in the broad front, and least of all to the radical Left who, at that time, was its motive force. That said, the organizers of this human rights awareness campaign were willing to walk the extra mile in asking Cardinal Sin to participate. And that responsibility fell on my shoulders.

Setting an appointment by phone was the easy part. At Villa San Miguel, I was ushered in by a staff, whom I remember was a Daughters of Charity (DC) nun, into the Cardinal Sin’s spacious office. It was well lighted by a big window, had red wall-to-wall carpeting, and had lots of fine wood paneling. There were two chairs with red suede upholstery facing each other in front of Cardinal Sin's imposing desk. I chose to sit on the chair on the left.

After some friendly and perfunctory banter in which he asked how I was doing at NASSA and which lasted about fifteen minutes, I handed him the official letter of invitation. I am not sure but the invitations must have been signed by NCCP and AMRSP heads Rev. La Verne Mercado and Fr. Lope Castillo MSC respectively.  I explained the purpose of the human rights symposiums and invited him to be the main speaker in one of them. Not taking any chances he might not have understood what I said, I gave him a brochure explaining everything.

The Cardinal told me he would study the matter first, and asked me to come back several days later for his answer. He was effusive with praise for what I was doing, and sneaked in a joke and a wisecrack now and then.  The witticisms, for good measure, were all followed by a hearty laugh. Then, as a parting shot, Cardinal Sin praised the organizers for their commitment to human rights, while writing a dedication on the blank starting page of a book on Chinese proverbs. To my amusement, the page already had a dedication from the giver, a man named "Daniel." Cardinal Sin told me he was giving the book to me as a remembrance of our meeting. That was late 1977. I have kept and treasured the book to this day.

Cardinal Sin's dedication went:

Dear Beto:

This book comes from a friend but I am giving this to you as a friend.

+ J. Card. Sin

The meeting was held in Cardinal Sin's office in Villa San Miguel, Mandaluyong City. He was a very sincere man, and genuinely sympathized with what I was doing as an anti-martial law activist. He was smiling as he scribbled the dedication. 

When I came back to Villa San Miguel to find out if Cardinal Sin had accepted the invitation, I did not know I was in for a shock. I passed through his secretary the way I did in our first meeting, and I sat on the same chair. The Cardinal, unlike in our first meeting, was now dead serious. His first move was to call in a priest in his late thirties, whom he said occupied a responsible position in his staff, which position I have now completely forgotten. His name was Fr. Gabriel Reyes, and he sat on the chair in front of me. It was obvious he was one of Cardinal Sin’s able lieutenants.

Cardinal Sin proceeded to give me the lowdown. A very important general in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) had told him that the human rights symposium I was inviting him to attend was actually sponsored by the CPP, who were using AMRSP and NASSA as legal fronts.  He said the general also told him the communists were just out to exploit his name to give credibility to the gathering, and that he should not to attend it.

But Cardinal Sin was reserving the worst for the last. I thought I was already shocked, but his last sentence was the real bombshell. Cardinal Sin revealed to me that the general mentioned my name as one of the “hard core” elements organizing the human rights symposiums. Upon hearing this accusation, I got so numb I could not speak.

After this tirade by Cardinal Sin, it was Fr. Gabriel Reyes’ turn to speak. He spoke slowly, and in a polite yet direct manner, explaining to me the decision of the cardinal not to attend. Cardinal Sin was now very still, stoically silent, and with a blank expression on his face. I felt that he had already said his piece and was just letting Fr. Reyes finish me off and send me away. I was right.

After a few motherhood sentences, Fr. Gabriel Reyes gently told me that the meeting was over and I had to go. By now I had regained my composure and I tried to explain my side.  But he plainly and bluntly reiterated that the meeting was over.  I could have read his mind right there and then, saying “Nice try kid!”

There was a brief silence in the room, as the two cassocked men stared at me accusingly. The awkward lull was only broken when I thanked both men, trying to be as gracious as I could. I wanted to tell them that everything I was representing was legitimate and for a noble cause, yet the looks on their faces told me they were not in a mood for any explanations. This was another triumph for the red-scare tactics of the military, I told myself. 

After bowing meekly in utter rejection and embarrassment, I half-consciously stepped out of Cardinal Sin’s office on the second floor of stately Villa San Miguel. I descended the carpeted stairs into the first floor lobby, whose broad front entrance led to the beautiful gardens outside. After negotiating the long driveway, I dazedly stepped out of Villa San Miguel’s tall gate and found myself on busy Shaw Boulevard. I grabbed the first available taxi and went home.

The September 21, 1977 Rizal Avenue Anti-Martial Law Rally

The September 21, 1977 Rizal Avenue rally protested the fifth anniversary of the declaration of martial law. Previous to this mass action, the anniversary of martial law had not been the object of open protest, and certainly not denounced in such a scathing way, as this rally did. With so much at stake on this rally, the CPP Manila-Rizal committee (MR) prepared and planned way in advance for the gathering, with party memorandums mentioning it as early as February or March 1977.

As with the 1976 rallies, this demonstration was part of the general effort towards generating a “rebolusyonaryong sigwa” (revolutionary storm) that would get the participation of 50,000 to 100,000 people, to finally topple the Marcos regime.

MR worked hard to ensure “maximum mobilization” or the biggest participation possible, for this historic demonstration. It set at its target 7,000 to 10.000 people to attend  the audacious rally. The protesters were to converge at the busy intersection of Rizal and Recto Avenues. In those days, when the population of Metro-Manila was a lot less than today, and with the government policy of dispersing protest rallies, these were big numbers. 

The would-be participants, who were either CPP sympathizers, national-democratic activists, or CPP members, were under instructions to cause a monstrous traffic jam, and attract the attention of as many pedestrians as possible. The organizers knew that the propaganda value of the rally hinged greatly on its on-the-ground audience, as the Marcos media was expected to ignore the event.

The rally went on as scheduled, at around 5 pm. It was a Wednesday. The sidewalks of Rizal and Recto avenues teemed with people, and the Seventies rush-hour traffic was building up. Upon a signal from the marshals, which consisted of many red balloons being released by a designated group, the protestors suddenly occupied the intersection and that stretch of Rizal Avenue between Recto and Carriedo.

Per the estimate of the marshals,  the rally achieved the number of 7,000-10,000.  Suddenly, that part of Rizal Avenue became a sea of angry streamers, placards, and red flags being waved in giant figure-eights. The anti-Marcos slogans and chants, which resonated off the enclosing buildings, seemed to blend in cadence. The most shouted slogans were “Ibagsak ang batas militar!” (Down with martial law!), and Marcos Hitler Diktador Tuta! (Marcos Hitler Dictator Lapdog!).

The sidewalks of “Avenida Rizal” were now jammed with ogling pedestrians, curious as to how the rally would play out, and admiring the guts of these derring-dos. They occupied the front of the small restaurants, “soda fountains”, first-run theaters, department stores, bakeries, magazine stands, and school-supply stores that once gave this stretch the fashionable title of “Downtown”, at least to my father’s generation.

This captive audience curiously scanned the inflammatory leaflets that the protestors scattered. Fearing arrest, most of them immediately dropped the printed materials to the smudgy, tile-covered Avenida sidewalks. If the number of spectators were added to that of rally participants, then this CPP initiated affair would have easily assembled 12,000 people, making it the biggest anti-Marcos rally so far at that time.

The rally was cut short not 30 minutes after its start, with the arrival of several fire trucks belonging to the WPD. In no time, the fire trucks’ powerful pumps were whirring, with their 2.5 inch hoses pummeling the demonstrators with powerful bursts of red and green colored water. Many nuns got knocked down from the impact, their immaculate habits stained by the fluid. Many participants and bystanders, who got drenched as well, swore it stunk like sewage.  They later surmised that the color and odor of the water were either a part of the police’s psychological warfare, or a way of marking the rally participants for possible arrest.

The male laborers and students tried to resist the police onslaught. However, they too, soon dispersed, because of the sheer strength and volume of the water. The pressure of those fire-hoses, 75 to 100 psi, is strong enough to cause bone fracture. At any rate, there were truncheon wielding riot police and thugs wearing “Barangay Tanod” uniforms out to finish what was left over by the fire trucks.

By the time it was dark, around past six, the protesters had completely dispersed. The September 21, 1977 Rizal Avenue anti-martial rally was part of history. Most of the participants converged at pre-determined meeting places to recount their experience. Most of them were young: very few were past thirty. and the celebratory assessments lasted till the wee hours.