Bayonets at Santolan

by: Stephen Henry S. Totanes

Active nonviolence, passive resistance  the way of life of great men like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King was something I had read about in books, I had seen on film, I had attended talks about. I knew what it meant, or so I thought.

Monday, February 24, 1986, was the day of the false alarm. I had arrived in Camp Crame at seven in the morning, and the news was spreading — Marcos and family left the country, it was all over! I met the Ateneo contingent who had stayed overnight at Gate 4 of Camp Aguinaldo, manning the food stations. They were droopy-eyed, but exuberant. At the gate We stened to the speeches of "victory" by General Ramos and Minister Enrile. But two hours later, the mood had changed. There was fighting in the Channel 4 Broadcasting station — Marcos had come out on TV. He was still here.

It was not yet over. It had just begun.

The Ateneo food stations at Gate 4 which we manned the day before had already been dismantled. Everybody must have thought that the revolution was indeed all over. Fortunately, two busloads of Ateneans faculty, students, staff, parents had gathered on campus and come to Crame together. For some students, it was the best way to escape the "house arrest" by worried parents — they simply said, "We are going to school." For the faculty and staff: "We are off to work."

But school and work for this Ateneo group that day would not be in the plush fields of Loyola Heights, but along the barricades at Santolan.

We must have numbered around 300. By 11:00 A.M., we had divided into two groups. The larger one was to march to White Plains, near the Protestant church to man (and "woman") the barricades. The 50 of us who were left were supposed to rebuild our homebase: a food-donation-receiving-and-disbursing center. I was acting marshal for the homebase at Gate 4, since I had had a good night's sleep. By noontime we were sufficiently organized. I boarded a van and headed for the White Plains area to distribute food and water to our barricaders.


They were having a picnic. This group had split into two: one was the third line of a series of barricades blocking the approach to White Plains from Green Meadows; the other group of about 150 in Santolan.

After lunch we went to join the Santolan people. We had hardly packed our van when I heard one of the Ateneo marshals calling out in the megaphone, "We are calling on our Filipino countrymen to join the barricade since there are some soldiers who want to enter" That was it. I jumped off the van to assess the situation.

An army jeepney and a truckload of soldiers (perhaps a whole platoon were trying to get into the camp. The Ateneo group was seated on the road, singing the "Our Father." Our negotiating panel — Fr. Bill Kreutz, Profs. Osca and Susan Evangelista, faculty members from Ateneo and UP, a Sister (I don't quite remember her name, but her bravery on the frontline earned on the frontline earned her the title "General") — was talking to the Captain driving the jeep. They
wanted to pass. We would not let them.

After five minutes, they backed off and made a U-turn to where they came from. We stood up, cheered and applauded. We had succeeded in our first test of resistance! The soldiers had left — for a while.

In two minutes, they were back. It was a hoax. They probably thought that in the flush of "victory", we would disband and they could get through. Our chief marshal hurriedly ordered us to sit down!" We started to sing the "Our Father" again — albeit a little bit more nervously this time.

Now the driver was more daring. He drove his jeep until about three feet away from the away from the first line of our barricade shouting, "Let us through!" Again, we would not let them. I heard him say to Fr. Kreutz, "Father, we're not going back to where we came from so you'd better let us pass."

By now, his aide, seated on the driver's right, wearing a teargas mask and shades so that his face was fully covered, had disembarked. He ordered the soldiers to dismount. With their M-16s ready, they formed a double file and began goose-stepping to where we were.

I was holding one of the megaphones so I instinctively said, "Kapit-bisig!" Everyone linked arms. We began singing again, but we were nota formidable barricade. We must have been only ten feet-deep, a little over 150 people, mostly students, 17-19 years old, and a sprinkling of library and staff of the Ateneo. A few bystanders had joined us, but what saddened me was quite a number were simply watching, a safe distance away, refusing to get involved.

The soldiers were now eyeball-to-eyeball with our front liners. I could see the expression on their faces-some were mad, as if we the civilians were the "enemy."

Then we realized that they were going to push their way through! The first five soldiers backed up by 30 others began pushing against the frontliners, with some deviously poking their rifle butts into the thighs of the students. Minutes passed-they had pushed until about the third line, but we held fast. They could not get through. The lieutenant asked his men to pull back.

We had stopped singing. Tension hung in the air. Some of the girls were crying. Some were pleading, "Have pity on us. We don't have weapons. We are fellow Filipinos." My voice was stuck in my throat, my heart was beating fast, my mind was wondering, "What in the heaven's name am I doing here?" Then it came. The lieutenant ordered his soldiers to "Fix bayonets". Some of them eagerly did. Fr.Kreutz pleaded, "But the people here are unarmed. The lieutenant remarked, "Don't blame us. We are used to killing.

He ordered the advance. The first five soldiers, with fury in their eyes, marched forward and pointed their bayonets at the stomach of the frontliners.

Fr. Kreutz made a quick decision. "Let them pass!" The lieutenant answered, "That's better."

We gave way. The soldiers marched by us, still menacingly pointing their bayonets at our faces. The jeep and the truck got through, too. One of the soldiers shouted, "We just want to go home to the province, and still want to stop us!"

We broke down. Some young men cursed and banged their fists on the road, weeping. The women were weeping. We were unnerved and frustrated. We had "flunked" our first exam in nonviolence.

Or did we?

Fr. Kreutz tried to console us. "We had no choice. It was too risky. We were not prepared for bayonets."

We certainly weren't. I had studied the procedures in resisting three forms of crowd dispersal tactics-teargas, water cannon, truncheons. But bayonets?

Suddenly in the midst of our despair, a man who later identified himself as a reformist major rushed down toward us, shouting, "Let them through" I turned. Who? Where? There was no one trying to get into the Santolan past our barricades. Why? Because they were trying to get out! They were the marines — the same ones who would gone past the thin barricades of sleepy-eyed diehards at 5:00 that morning, spewing teargas along Santolan and dispersing the defenseless crowd. Now they were on the way out! They had received orders to withdraw.

Ten trucks loaded with marines, five armor-piercing carriers, three tanks all rumbled past us, from Santolan to Libis. We cheered them through. And they cheered back! The drivers were blowing their horns in the famous one- two opposition call; some marines were waving the Laban sign. Those whose hands I could reach shook hands vigorously. Apparently, they were just happy to go!

Some were adamant, however. Others were stoic. One even shouted, "Cheer while you still can!" But they didn't matter anymore. We were overjoyed to let them pass, and shouts of "Thank you, we love you" filled the air.

I was thoroughly confused. We had just let one truck, one jeep — 50 soldiers in. Five minutes later, we had just let over 15 vehicles and 1,000 marines out. It was not a bad exchange, but what was going on?

But that was how it was for the most of the day. Nobody really knew completely what was happening. The one truck and jeep which we had allowed to pass seemed to have been a "roving" unit — it didn't even proceed to Aguinaldo but turned left to White Plains. On the other hand, the large marine contingent was being called back to the barracks.

Were we wrong in letting the bayonet-wielding group through? A student leader thought we did. "We should have been ready to shed blood. It's up to us." An elderly woman, who was not even with us at the barricades, snorted, "It's just a bluff. The soldiers wouldn't have really used their weapons. Would she mind proving it by joining us at the frontlines, I felt like answering back.

Fr. Kreutz summed it up well. "We held as long as it was humanly possible." I agreed. It would have been foolish if we had allowed anyone to get pierced by a bayonet, because if anyone were wounded, our lines would have broken anyhow. And after the chaos, here comes the marines, on their way out! If someone had been injured, we would have constantly questioned, "What for?"

But I think not everyone in the group agreed with me. Among the young and idealistic, fighting passively to the end would have been more honorable. Or maybe we should not have stood up. We should just have sat and sung our time away. Or at least got the captain to talk to us and explain why they wanted to pass — hold a dialogue. Linking arms, eyeball-to-eyeball with a soldier, was still a fighting stance — it was too active a resistance, it could provoke violence. Perhaps passive resistance would have been more creative.

Active nonviolence and passive resistance were easier said than done. But we had learned a lesson that day. The bayonets at Santolan were but a one step on the road to a way of life. Because that is active nonviolence — not one memorable incident, but a total way of life.



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