#MillionPeopleMarch: From candy crush land to Luneta

Events leading to the Million People March last August 26 were quite a whirlwind. This is my story on how I found myself among the volunteers in the protest that hoped for change.

 

August 17: Crossing over from “Candy Crush Land”

 

Let me simply introduce myself as an active “Facebooker.” Facebook has been a very effective platform for my advocacies, current issues, as well as my narcissism. The pork barrel scam made me angry and I did not hesitate to share my feelings on Facebook.

 

The tipping point of these posts was the one I posted at around 9:00 AM:

 

“Na freeze ang assets ng Napoles? Bakit di pwedeng gawan ng legally appropriate steps ang mga senators and congressmen na nakipag deal sa kanya? Now na! Wala pa bang naka sched mass action para dito? Walang mangyayari kung di i-elevate from FB – react react sa sariling airconditioned room lang? Para lang tayong nag candy crush niyan.

 

(Were Napoles assets frozen? Why can’t the senators and congressmen take legally appropriate steps to strike a deal with her? Are there any mass actions scheduled on this? Nothing will happen if this isn’t elevated from FB – are we just going to react from our air conditioned rooms? It’s like we all live in Candy Crush land.)

 

Ed’s note: Candy Crush is a hugely popular matching arcade game on Facebook, IOS and Android.

 

I posted the call to our group page and stumbled upon an event created for “Million People March to Luneta” to be held on August 26, Araw ng mga Bayani.

 

I simply clicked “join” and shared the link to the event with a simple status: “OCCUPY LUNETA na!”

 

“Mali ata. dapat occupy Congress and Senate. andun ang mga kapural,” a friend replies.” (That’s wrong, it should be occupy Congress and Senate, that’s where the instigators are.)

 

“Ang importante magsimula,” I wrote. (It’s important that we start.)

 

I never checked who created the page. At that time, I did not care – I just believed it was about time we crossed over from what I jokingly called the “Candy Crush Land” of Facebook.

 

AUGUST 19: When I became friends with my “Recruiter”

Reading through threads on Facebook, I chanced upon a girl asking for volunteers. I said I can work for the Help Desk and the Petition Signing Table.

My recruiter is your average private individual who never joined a rally before and was simply moved, liked the rest of us, by her anger towards the pork barrel issue.

 During that volunteers meeting, we discussed how to go about the petition signing initiative.  For the marshals, I told them I will try to get our UP alumni group’s support.

It was also agreed that a permit be secured. When I asked who the signatories for the permit would be, I was told it would be the 5 of us. 

When I woke up on Tuesday, August 20, my street was waist-deep in flood and work and classes had been suspended in Metro Manila. I could not submit the permit after all!

AUGUST 21: “Organizers” Meeting # 1

I got an SMS from my recruiter, asking if I was joining would join the meeting later. I told her, as much as I want to, I am still busy with post-flood clean-up.

She said Peachy Bretaña was now stepping up in this “leaderless” protest. It was only then that I heard the name of the event creator and it didn’t ring a bell. “Poor girl,” I thought, “how will she pull this off if she does not belong to any organized group?”

I felt more committed to join the group as an individual, just like Peachy.

AUGUST 20: UP SAMASA Alumni Meeting

 

This was the first time that I had actually attended a SAMASA Alumni meeting. SAMASA includes UP fraternities and I asked for help in putting together a group of marshals for crowd management.

 

The consensus: The group would support and join the “protest picnic” and would help as marshals. After all it was an initiative close to the heart of SAMASA members.

 

Ed’s note: SAMASA is an activist political alliance of UP student organizations that was at the forefront of campus politics during the 80s until its breakup in 1995.

 

August 23: “Organizers” Meeting # 2

President Benigno S. Aquino III announced that he is “scrapping PDAF.” I still had a lot of cleaning up to do at home and could not attend the second meeting, but was in constant communication with my recruiter.

 

By this time, I was part of the Facebook group created for overall coordination with organized groups. There were some anti-left slants that, in my honest opinion, were more discriminatory than objective. There were also petty discussions as to who gets access to five minutes of fame.

 

August 24: The Security Meeting

 

Arriving at the Quirino Grandstand, I expected to meet just a handful of people.  I was surprised to see a lot of men in uniform, media people and a group of individuals I recognized from the news.

 

We were asked to join the security meeting at the Manila Police District Headquarters in U.N. Avenue. I hitched a ride with one of the left leaders who was, until that day, a mere “Facebook friend.”

 

The meeting got very interesting when the police started asking who the leader of the activity was. None of us met the district chief’s questioning gaze. Finally, after a disclaimer of being just a private, unaffiliated individual, someone took the helm.

 

For lack of a better term, I think of us as a “people’s initiative.” But I have to say that inputs from leftist leaders helped strengthen the stand of “our group” during the discussions. We came out of the meeting feeling more organized and protective that this is going to be a “people’s initiative.”

 

During the security meeting, we were asked to sign an attendance sheet. I didn’t know what to sign – I was really just an individual with affiliations.

The media picked up the attendance sheet and identified the groups who signed as “organizers.”

That night at the Facebook group page, someone expressed disgust that some groups were not even at the last two meetings yet had the gall to proclaim themselves as one of the organizers. After a few more scathing comments from some “organizers,” I logged out.

Once calmer, I told my recruiter that I would deliver my tasks as promised. Para sa bayan. (For the country.)

 

August 26: The #MillionPeopleMarch

 

When I arrived in Luneta around daybreak, organized groups were already occupying our designated spot. They were gracious enough to move their banners.

 

We ran the petition signing from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM. All the forms were collected by change.org. I have yet to receive updates if the signatures were submitted to the appropriate bodies. 

 

Despite the difficulty of organizing on such a short notice with mostly anonymous members, the protest was a success.

 

We challenged the fatalism that lurks in many of us.  I did not get to meet Peachy Bretaña and ask her personally what she was thinking and why she did what she did.  But through her friends, I got to know the real story: like most of us, she did not expect that one post would take on a life of its own.

 

There is still that question in my head: who are the “real” leaders? Will they take what they started to the next level? If they do commit, will they continue to be a loose and unorganized bloc?

 

Were there opportunists present? In my personal opinion, there were a lot.  But they were just specks of dust compared to those who answered the call for change and accountability.

 

The #MillionPeopleMarch did not happen overnight.  Nameless, faceless people made it happen. Organized groups contributed a lot to its success. Despite the challenges, we made a difference.  We also made history—we had just launched the first “leaderless” mass action. It’s a preview of the emerging power of social media, more importantly, a preview of the changing face of protest. – Rappler.com

 

Author’s post script:

I am not in a position to call for support or not to support any activity, I can only speak for myself. I take action only with people I trust.

A rally being organized on Marcos’ birthday, with calls to wear Marcos colors sends me warning signals.

The issue is pork barrel and corruption and I do not see how this links to Marcos’ birthday.

 

Zena Bernardo Bernardo is a single mom, founder and executive director of Bahay Amihan, an NGO for solo parents. She describes herself as a suicide prevention advocate and the mother of activists.