Warmest greetings to all youth, especially our fellow Ateneans, who joined the monumental wave of protests against corruption this past year!

Now more than ever, we recall the militant history of the First Quarter Storm, on the occasion of its 56th anniversary.

The current state of our nation is no different from the eve of the First Quarter Storm in 1970. In those days, our country’s economy was plummeting and collapsing under the subservience of the Marcos regime to the leading monopoly-capitalist power in the world: the United States. In the face of collapse, the regime continued their unrelenting plunder and theft from the coffers of the people. Fascist repression against the people was also intensifying, both in the cities and the countryside. These are the reasons that drove more than fifty-thousand youths to stage a massive rally on January 26th 1970, the day of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s SONA. Kabataang Makabayan and Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan militantly led the latter part of the program to unveil the futility of reform and compromise with the detested Marcos Sr. regime. After a direct confrontation between the youth and Marcos Sr. and Imelda Marcos, the protest was violently attacked and dispersed by the fascist police. Two youths died from the brutal beatings of truncheons and police gunfire, while hundreds of others were seriously injured and arrested without warrant. The reactionary government was stripped of its ornaments of “democracy” and “freedom”, revealing the true and monstrous nature of the state as an instrument of the ruling to maintain their hegemonic reign and to further worsen their exploitation of those they rule over.

The hallmarks of history are unmistakable. The US-Marcos II regime is manifesting the same as today. Marcos Jr. is ruthlessly inflicting state violence upon the people resisting continued corruption and exploitation, especially the youth and students who now reject the rottenness of Philippine society and long for revolutionary change. The second US-Marcos regime is tightening its grip on universities through the AFP, PNP, and NTF-ELCAC. The regime’s National Action Plan for Unity, Peace and Development (NAP-UPD) outlines its plans to expand and deepen the reach of its terror among the people, leading the AFP to enter into Declarations of Cooperation within the leading universities of the country. In this manner, the terroristic military exploits the efforts and talents of the students to advance the technologies and tactics that they continue to employ in their counterrevolutionary war in the entire country. The NSC and NTF-ELCAC continue to use the façade of academic discourse to poison the minds of the youth and hinder their critical study of the intensifying class struggles in our nation. The depravity of the AFP extends to peddling “educational tours” and “field trips” of their camps and military bases to minors to inculcate them into militaristic thought. Any youth or student critical of the current exploitative system is branded as a terrorist. They brand as terrorists all youth and students who hope to change the status quo of the current exploitative social order. By all means and methods, they wish to render the youth blind, deaf, mute, and numb to the unrelenting oppression and exploitation of the US-Marcos II regime.

However, Marcos Jr. has forgotten the lessons and experiences from the time of his dictatorial father. The militant spirit of the youth cannot deterred by any violence. Four days after the dispersal of the thousands-strong protest on January 26, 1970, the youth, now more than fifty-thousand strong, returned to the streets and marched to the gates of Malacañang, carrying the call: “Makibaka, huwag matakot!” The youth had been awakened to the violent reality of class struggle in Philippine society. They shook the foundations of the Marcos Sr. regime, casting away illusions of its fascist strength and revealing it to be a paper tiger. However, that was only the beginning of the revolutionary work of the youth: after the end of the massive mobilisations and protests of the First Quarter Storm, thousands of youth went to the countryside to study the true conditions of Philippine society. They linked these lessons to the universal theory of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to contribute to the people’s democratic revolution, the only solution to eradicate the root causes of the nation’s poverty. As a direct result of the severe violence inflicted on protest actions in the cities, an entire generation of students and youth realised the truth: that a people’s war in the countryside is the only path to topple the regime and the decaying social order existent in the Philippines. By way of propagating counter-revolutionary terror, Marcos Sr. himself created the most fertile situation to wage armed revolution.

It is astounding ignorance of the laws of history to think that the revolutionary movement of the student youth can be extinguished. History has held witness to the fact that every attempt to crush the revolutionary courage of the youth will be defeated and will blow up in the face of the reactionary state. It is a historical certainty and necessity that the revolutionary movement will match and surpass the state’s reactionary violence using revolutionary violence. This is the historic task of the youth in their yearning to win a liberated future and to found a society without exploitation.

The challenge to every youth today is to break free from the comfortable life they are used to and wholeheartedly dedicate their time, strength, and lives to the people’s democratic revolution that will topple the US-Marcos II regime. To our fellow Atenean youth, let us take to heart the colorful history of past Ateneans who took to the path of facing class struggle and embraced the revolutionary perspective of the oppressed and exploited masses. Like Emmanuel Lacaba, Ferdinand Arceo, William Begg, Edgar Jopson, Sonny Hizon, Dante Perez, Nick Solana, Lazaro Silva, and others who were awakened by the violence of the reactionary Marcos Sr. regime, we must not hesitate to unite with the oppressed peoples in their revolutionary aspirations. From being staunch organisers of Kabataang Makabayan and Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan in the cities, they courageously decided to take up arms in the countryside and became Red fighters of the New People’s Army. Do not hesitate to follow in their footsteps and sharpen our minds through revolutionary theory and join the people’s war to build a bastion of revolution in the poverty-stricken communities of the countryside. To go to the countryside to become a Red fighter is not an act of terrorism; rather, it is the correct and noble way to defend the people from the terrorism of a reactionary, exploitative government propped up by the global monopoly-capitalist system. Only in this way can we fulfill our duty as youth to serve as the hope of the nation.

Live out the defiant and revolutionary spirit of the First Quarter Storm! Revolt against the avarice of the puppet and fascist US-Marcos II regime!

Long live the Kabataang Makabayan!
Long live the Atenean martyrs of the people!
Viva CPP-NPA-NDF!

The post Youth and students, live out the spirit of the First Quarter Storm! Wage revolution against the US-Marcos II regime! appeared first on PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central.

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