The Philippine State, Society
& Economy, 1992-1998

Nov 28, 96
People's Conference Against
Imperialist Globalization
By APEC-Watch

People wonder if the Ramos government could have prevented the caravan. Well, quite early in the morning of Nov. 24, two emissaries from the government arrived, Solicitor-General Silvestre Bello III and Budget Secretary Enriquez. The two conversed with Satur Ocampo, KMU's Crispin Beltran and BAYAN's Nathaniel Santiago, all of them surrounded by eavesdropping media people. We gathered that the two bureaucrats had come to nip the caravan in the bud, or else gain some concessions for the government to save face. The quintet of administration officials and militant leaders conversed in hushed, serious minutes. Ka Satur smilingly told the envoys that the caravan had been planned and announced months in advance; in short, no way the government will the participants give in to government's last-ditch damage control attempts!

Bello and Enriquez walked away with set faces, the media people eagerly squeezing out their disappointed reactions.

Afterwards, the militant leaders set afire a huge roll of paper marked 'APEC,' to the applause and cheers of onlookers, and the rapid clicking and rolling of media's cameras.

****

Before the jeepneys, pick-up trucks, vans and cars of the People's Caravan could roll on, several red-suited traffic enforcers and khaki-clad policemen appeared and began demanding for the licenes of the jeepney drivers. Atty. Romeo Capulong and some BAYAN leaders -- and dozens of hecklers -- confronted (surrounded is more like it) their leader, a Capt. Balita from the Central Police District, who beat a hasty retreat from the sharp condemnation of the harassment.

BAYAN's indomitable Dr. Carol Araullo figured in two dramatic encounters with the police. A cable TV journalist gleefully told the first one: Dr. Araullo was standing along Commonwealth Avenue, by the exit point of the convoy of vehicles joining the caravan, when one of the policemen harassing the caravan walked up to her and impudently told her to get out of the way because she was blocking the passing buses. She unblushingly withered the policeman with a scathing reply: "You get out of the way. You're the one blocking the caravan!" She swatted three times the officer, who was probably used to getting away with his bullying, and the poor thug could do nothing -- especially with three television cameras recording the event for posterity!

The second story is more apocryphal: A policeman cocked and aimed his pistol at someone, said to be Dr. Araullo, who mocked him by saying, "Go ahead! Shoot me!" And the would-be Rambo's trigger finger trembled in shame before the magnificence of the Gabriela!

****

A mesmerizing sight on the overpass on the way to the Balintawak tollgate greeted the People's Caravan: many hundreds of people clapping, waving, cheering! On the rooftops of the urban poor communities by the roadside, many more were precariously perched and enjoying the spectacle of the standoff between the activists and the ranks of anti-riot police, whose blockade caused a monster traffic jam. The caravan held an impromptu program for their benefit, explaining the evils of APEC and imperialist globalization which were causing the demolition of their communities, as well as regaling them with militant social-realist songs. These were all generally well-received. In fact, when a downpour came, rumored to be the result of the government's cloud-seeding operation to literally "douse" the protest action, the people simply flipped open their umbrellas and waited until the police relented and let the caravan through.

****

There is, during the Balintawak blockade, the apocryphal story of a police colonel who trembled before the personality of Atty. Romeo Capulong. This colonel was commanding the blocking police troops. Atty. Capulong, who is famous as a human rights lawyer and as the legal counsel of the National Democratic Front, walked up to negotiate with him. Upon learning who he was, the police colonel's eyes went wide and he stammered, "No, I can't talk with you! I'll have to get someone higher than me!" And he turned tail to get his general!

People also talked with much admiration about how Atty. Capulong methodically demolished the puny legal excuses by the police who threw up no less than eight barricades to stop or delay the caravan. It was no-contest between him and the police legal counsel, who scored nothing and should go back to law school, wags say.

Sample:

Police legal counsel: This is a roving checkpoint, and we want to search your caravan's vehicles.

Atty. Capulong: No, that is illegal.

Police legal counsel: The Supreme Court says it is legal!

Atty. Capulong: Unless you can prove that the APEC summit is a state of emergency, because roving checkpoints are legal only in a state of emergency.

Police legal counsel: (scratches head) Oooh, is that sooooooo?

****

To paraphrase an adage, anti-imperialist faith can move trucks. At Philcoa along Commonwealth Ave., the police blocked with a dump truck the 200-vehicle convoy of the People's Caravan. Leaders negotiated with the police, who smugly shrugged. In sheer outrage and annoyance at this petty obstacle, a general cry went up: "Let's push the darn truck!" With a lot of heaving, right before the open-mouthed police, the truck was pushed to one side, and the caravan went on!

Later, towards San Fernando, Pampanga, a bigger ten-wheeler truck was used as a barricade (it broke down, the police lamely said). Again, off to one side it went! Towards Bataan, two buses were said to have been blocking the road before the police removed them in embarrassment over the curses of angry residents and commuters stranded in mammoth traffic.

Finally, to show its grudging respect for the 450-vehicle, 8,000-strong caravan, the police put the mother of all obstacles in Dinalupihan town on the road to Olongapo: a huge crane surrounded by three deep ranks of anti-riot troops! Rather than disturb the morose police and their beloved barricade, the convoy finally stopped and held a day-long program while the police wilted, demoralized, under the sun.

****

Several residents to the entrance of the town of Dinalupihan, which would prove to be final stage of the People's Caravan, rushed up when the convoy rolled and stopped before the police phalanx and a blockade composed of several trucks and firetrucks, as well as many barangay tanods imported from as far as the nearby provinces. The excited residents exclaimed: "We've been waiting for you for hours! We were following your journey live on radio!" And to think it was almost midnight!

It was truly heartwarming to see the eagerness of the masses. When a group of caravan participants went down to get water for the long journey ahead, an old man directed them to his artesian well. In casual conversation, the activists explained the reason for the government repression of the caravan as its inability to defend or even explain APEC and globalization to the common people. The old man nodded and said that was true. He said: "Actually, I don't even understand this APEC thing (which goes to show that the government's propaganda barrage for APEC was a massive waste of public funds). So it is good to hear protests like yours which we can understand."

He even laughed off the idea that the notorious Richard Gordon, Amboy and nemesis of the anti-APEC activists, was well-beloved in Olongapo: "I have a brother in Olongapo, and I'd dare say eighty percent of Olongapo residents loathe Gordon. He's a real bastard -- his good public relations image is the result of having a lot of journalists on his payroll!"

****

The indefatigable Pastor Roy Padilla of the Promotion of Church People's Response kept the caravan participants alive with with his rousing agitation and well-picked metaphors from the Bible. In fact, the entire chuch sector was very militant. At the entrance to Dinalupihan, some sang and acted to entertain the caravan participants who were boredly wating for the police to let them through. One of their songs was about the Christian cross, which has two ends: one reactionary, the other like a dagger poised to strike in struggle.

It was probably Pastor Roy who, Moses-like, exhorted the blocking police to "let the people through!" Likewise, people relished the way he tossed away Biblical passages like arrows against the police -- and sleeping comrades.

****

There is a well-known chant dating back to the fiery days of the 1970 First Quarter Storm which is still used for agitation today, primarily by militant youth and students eager to go the countryside. It goes: "Narinig niyo, narinig niyo, ibababa ang Martial Law!" (Have you heard, have you heard, Martial Law will be handed down!) The answer goes this way: "Eh ano, eh ano , mamumundok na lang kami!" (So what, so what, we are going to the mountains!)

Well, the lively Aetas of Central Luzon did LFS better. When the chant came up, they yelled: "Eh ano, eh ano, nasa bundok na kami! (So what, so what, we are already in the mountains!)



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