Under the solemn gaze of the golden statue of the Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace, the sound of clanging pots and whistles filled the Edsa Shrine on Friday, Oct. 10, as the Trillion Peso March movement launched its weekly protest.
Instead of the silence often tied to peace, the air rang with noise- from whistles, stereos, pots and pans- demanding accountability.
This is because the protest includes noise barrage, candle-lighting activities and a mass.
Among those in the crowd of men, women, queer, old and young was 18-year-old Christian Alday, one of the young voices calling for change. But it was not Alday’s first protest of the day. Earlier, he joined a campus walkout organized by students of the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP).
Alday, a first-year Public Administration student specializing in Fiscal Administration at PUP’s Quezon City campus, said he felt it was his duty to stand with the movement. ‘I joined these protests because, as a student specializing in Fiscal Administration, we want to help improve our system of fiscal governance. We want budget deliberations and discussions on public funds to be reformed and corruption to finally end,’ said Alday in Filipino.
‘As an iskolar ng bayan (scholar of the nation), joining protests will never be a burden to me. In fact, I just came from a rally earlier. We staged a walkout from PUP Quezon City to the House of Representatives.’
Alday is a member of Akbayan Youth and the Student Council of the Philippines (SCAP), where he serves as national finance officer.
Student activism
Yet his journey as an activist did not begin in college, not in PUP that has long been known for its tradition of student activism.
It started when he was in high school, at Batasan Hills National High School (BHNHS)- the public secondary school with the highest number of enrollees.
‘I have long been an advocate of quality education,’ said Alday.
He recalled his days as student council president. For him, BHNHS is the perfect embodiment of the problems many Filipino students face with the education system.
‘First of all, BNHS is overpopulated. We have very few classrooms yet the number of students reaches more than 15,000 to 20,000 every year,’ he said.
‘There is also a clear lack of funding. We see our teachers- the teachers of the nation- not receiving competitive salaries from the government despite their heavy workload. And it’s not just the teachers but also the school administrators who face the same situation.’
Facing these challenges as an everyday reality, Alday said that SCAP helped open his eyes about how the system works- and why it must be changed and improved. ‘We may not be able to see the fruits of what we are fighting for but someday, in a distant future, we will achieve what we are struggling for,’ said Alday.
A solemn vow
Some activists have called the launch of the weekly protest as their panata or solemn vow.
‘We join the call that someone should be jailed. These anomalies cannot be allowed to pass, they cannot be swept under the rug,’ said Francis ‘Kiko’ Dee during the media interview.
Dee is the co-convener of the Buhay ang People Power Campaign Network and the grandson of martyred Filipino hero Ninoy Aquino and late President Corazon ‘Cory Aquino.
He said that the protest will continue every Friday, as they want to see district engineers and other high-ranking officials held accountable.
‘We want to see meaningful cases filed against high officials. We want to see people jailed, and we hope that the cases that will be filed against them will be non-bailable,’ said Dee.