A bright sunny day in Suliman. Even the clouds were as gorgeous as clouds painted by Fernando Amorsolo. Voices of students are rocking the corridors of Palad Hall while 8:30 class sessions have just started. The maroon of the corridor flooring went well with the poster red of the protester’s streamers scrawled unto light brown Manila paper. Even mount Arayat’s summit looked angry as seen miles across from Palad Hall’s seventh floor. “Sumama na kayo! (Join us; we’ll get it going, comrades)” Ferdie Baron led the shouting, “Iskolar ng Bayan / Ngayon ay Lumalaban (Scholars of the state / now fight for what’s right)” Ferdie Baron, now no longer a student, forced out of school due to dire poverty now fights it out even on the streets so that no more poor students would have to suffer what he did: being elbowed out of a school that became more financially demanding.
“Government subsidy / huwag ibawas! (Don’t decrease / government subsidy)” shouted Marigold Bitanga, a dean’s lister who led an austere course of scholarship, declining even the friendly invitation by the bourgeois-founded Kappa Alpha sorority.
“Iskolar ng Bayan / Ngayon ay Lumalaban (Scholars of the state / now fight [the wrongs imposed])” shouted Jojo Macalintal, whose uncle had been imprisoned and tortured during the reign of ex-Philippine President Bernardo Nalko.
Ferdie Baron saw Olive in his Sociology 143 classroom in Palad Hall Room 509, nested among his Logos of Socio friends: Andres Villaron, Openg Marcelez and Lanson. Ferdie and Olive exchanged smiling faces, but Olive did not join Ferdie and his throng of protesting students. No one from Logos of Socio, not even Olive, joined the rallying students.
However, by this time, Ferdie Baron and Gogo Augusta have reconciled their differences. On this historical day, June 15, 1995, the two alumni of Ligang Makatarungan shook hands. They rode side by side on the same jeepney shuttle bound for the Philippine Senate Hall. The jeepney was driven by Conrado Villaroman, also part of the protest, as he could not afford to have his own bright children from Suliman high school attend the university with the same name: Pamantasang Rajah Mudah Suliman, Suliman University.
The rally was composed both of students and labour sectoral representatives. The ordinary Filipino worker (at least those in the minority who preferred National Democracy over bourgeois show business) wanted the poor student to thrive in the State University.
The pop-rock duo Yano joined the rally, performing their reknown hits such as “Tsinelas (Sandals)” and “Kumusta na? (How are things going?)” along with Gary Granada who sang “Bahay (Home).”
Even vendors of turon (flour wrapped caramel-fried banana) and banana cue (saba bananas fried and pegged onto a barbecue stick) joined the rally, so that on that day, there was no turon or banana cue to be bought anywhere in Suliman. You had to go to the rally, which had a motorcade of jeepney shuttles and some Quixotic tricycles that broom-broomed all forty miles to the Philippine Senate Hall, instead of staying within their daily two-kilometer perimeter circuit of trade.
The protesters clamoured for the right to meet face to face with Philippine senators. Some thought that Benson Uzon of Partido Ilaw political party would be liberal enough, or maybe Cindy Tedengco, but after three and a half hours of shouting and chanting, it was rather Philippine President Aquil Tamaco Enriquez who was the first man in the high government of the country to speak and address the protesters. He was escorted all the way from Malacañang Palace by his own motorcade of Presidential Security Guards in Black Mercedes Benzes, Black Isuzu Pick-up Trucks and Black Pajeros all with License Plate number 1.
In a surprise gesture he would never again repeat in his term, and even therafter, Philippine President Aquil Tamaco Enriquez bought a bottle of water from one of the vendors present (not waiting for the change), and took quite a few sips from it. Members of the presidential staff pulled out a podium from one of the black Isuzu pick-up trucks and set it up on the platform which was the meeting of the Senate Hall’s North steps with its South steps. Dozens of Presidential Security Guards and two hundred soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines took their positions around the perimeter.
Then he spoke (words actually written that same day by Suliman professor Randy Semito, Ph.D.):
“Good afternoon, my fellow Filipinos. I see that many of you have gathered. I welcome your presence before the Great Hall of our Philippine Senate. There will be no human rights violations under my administration. You people have the right to speak and protest our government’s policies. Under the democratic space my administration provides, I empower you people to speak freely on the way things are run in our Beloved Philippines. Thank you all and have a great day.”
There was some applause, but people felt that the very president of our Philippine Republic wasn’t addressing the issue of tuition fee increase in Suliman University.
None of the eight Philippine senators who were alumni and alumnae of Suliman University ever spoke to the protesting public that day. Not Noel Romanierro, who graduated as an Engineer from Suliman back in 1963. Not Joyce Bautista, who finished summa cum laude in law back in 1971. The Mu Gammans Ricardo Peralta (the Bicolano), Pablo Jose and Prudencio Aguilar did not come out on the platform, which President Enriquez left open for any senators who would respond to the protesting public. Nor did the Omega Deltans Julio Tayab and Arnel Narangking. Maria Polaco of the Beta Tau Sigma sorority cried inside the senate hall (which became news on TV channels 2, 8 and 12), but did not come out.
Senator Benson Uzon, who graduated from De La Salle University in Manila said: “Masama ang tuition fee increase (this tuition hike is bad),” but he was not really connected with Suliman University, less so with its Board of Regents.
The senators who were alumni of Saint Francis University did not release statements.