“Tahimik Dito sa Tacloban”
by Benedict Ballaran
“Bakit niyo ba kasi ginagawa ‘to? Tahimik dito sa Tacloban eh,” a policeman asked the students trying to push through the blockade by the Tacloban City Police.
Around 60 policemen pressed in on the students, cornering us on the street near RTR Plaza. We had nothing but placards and our hearts, yet our pleas to return to campus after the police violently dispersed our peaceful protest fell on deaf ears. Leading the effort to break the police’s barricade was Iya Trinidad, the 40th Student Regent. “Wala pong masama sa ginagawa namin. Hindi po kami nanggugulo. Gusto lang po naming i-rehistro ang mga panawagan namin sa lansangan,” I heard her amid the chaos, explaining to the clueless officers, who saw nothing but a disruption to the ‘quiet’ they had long enforced.
Caught in the crush of the crowd against a rusty fence, my lungs gasped for air — it felt as though the police had my democratic right to protest by the throat, choking the life out of it. As they closed in, the crowd tightened, refusing to let each other go. Our backs were against the wall — fighting back was the only option as the people in power threatened to break our resolve.
“‘Wag na kasi kayo sumagot. Isang salita mo pa, poposasan na kita!” The booming warning of the police clashed with the students’ desperate cries. The students and the police were locked in a heavy standstill. When a student was manhandled, forced to the ground, and ended up in handcuffs, a tense silence followed. Right then, it became clear — terrorizing the people with threats, intimidations, and excessive force was how they kept Tacloban “tahimik” all these years. The city was not silent because of peace — it was quiet because voices were stifled.
For more than four years, Tacloban City was subdued. Heightened police and military presence quelled dissent, activists, and community leaders were imprisoned, and the rampant red-tagging through the years built the “peace” the Tacloban police proudly paraded. A city so frequently ravaged by roaring storms was lulled to a mute. The ‘City of Hope’ was morphed into a ‘City of Disquietude.’
The Tacloban police prided themselves on the ‘quiet’ they erroneously achieved by illegally arresting five activists — Abinguna, Legion, Domequil, Cabaljao, and Cumpio, known as the Tacloban 5 — on Feb. 7, 2020. The five activists are still under wraps on trumped-up charges of financing terrorism and illegal possession of firearms and explosives to this day — pressed as consequences for their choice of merely serving their community. The chilling effect had been immediate, no one dared to mount a major demonstration since their arrest. Despite the Tacloban police’s claims, the arrest of the five activists did not achieve ‘peace’ — it planted terror.
In a land ruled by fear, truth-tellers have one foot on the grave. Local campus publications faced harassment as they were forced to confine their reports within the chambers of the University only. Under the ‘quiet’ Tacloban city, “Hindi na ‘to sa campus,” was their usual answer to journalists putting their lens and pens on prevalent issues outside the campus. There were restrictions on the media — the “quiet Tacloban” was at the cost of press freedom.
When terror is state-sponsored, even Tacloban is not safe from red-tagging attacks. In a Senate hearing in pursuit of possibly amending the Anti-terror Law, Senator Bato Dela Rosa and the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) named UP Tacloban as one of the top recruiters of students to “communist-terrorist” groups. The “whole-of-nation” approach to attack and red-tag Universities and students cast a long shadow from Malacañan to Tacloban City — the people in power are harvesting the fear they had sown.
For four years, this was the reality of Tacloban City. Terror was the tyrant that trumped the voices of the masses. Laws were weaponized to silence those who criticized their incompetence. Protesting seemed unspeakable — an act deemed as a disturbance by the police. Voicing out dissent was met with violence and intimidation, and being critical was responded with red-tags and baseless accusations. There was quiet, but there was never peace.
What the delegates staged at McDiola in Downtown Tacloban on Aug. 16 was monumental — a show of force that Tacloban will no longer be scared into silence. Even though we knew that good intentions and the lawful exercise of our democratic rights would not be spared by the police, we mustered through anyway.
I must admit that there was fear in my heart. The chilling silence was palpable in the streets of Tacloban as terror pervades, lurking in every shadow. Before the protest started, police mobiles were already patrolling the area. Men clad in blue uniforms were roaming the streets and the mall nearby. It seemed as though every move we made was monitored from the moment we stepped outside the university — like vultures waiting for their prey.
But I knew that as long as there are those willing to stand up against the tyrants, terror will not triumph. Our protest action was more than just an act of resistance — it was to resurrect the voices whom the oppressive state had suffocated. We prepared for the inevitable, knowing our efforts would be met with ruthless force. There was no fear bigger than the will to be of service to the people.
With flaming resolve, we took to the streets. Amid police interception, we rallied at ‘McDiola’ in Downtown Tacloban calling for an end to campus militarization, budget cuts, and the release of political prisoners. A hundred students bravely toppled the silence that commanded the city for years. We had no arms nor violent intentions — only our placards and hopes that our calls would reach the hearts of Taclobanons. It was a historic bout — the first mobilization since the unlawful arrest of Tacloban 5 more than four years ago.
Hundreds of Taclobanons stopped and watched the demonstration. Some of the family members of the Tacloban 5 heard our message and raised their fists with us in solidarity. As the police were closing on us in McDiola, the people heard our calls. When the police dispersed us and cornered us in RTR Plaza, hundreds of Taclobanons witnessed how the police violently handled the students. We took our message to the streets and the people listened — the first step in breaking the four-year silence of Tacloban City.
Yet not one of the hundred students corralled in that corner will tell you that they regret what they did. In times when the Marcos-Duterte administration continues to reign with terror, to be comfortable with the silence is to turn a blind eye to the injustices on the farthest side of the country. Amid state oppression, voicing out can be suffocating, but we must stand firm in upholding our rights and fight for justice. With linked arms, we must hold our ground — collective action can topple even the most robust of despots.
Tacloban City was never peaceful, as the police claim, people were terrorized to cower in fear and stifle dissent. Peace for those in power was always at the cost of those who stood up for what was right. The rally at McDiola was a reminder to the people in power that no amount of intimidation and red-tagging can push the people into submission.
For as long as there are those who are willing to voice out, Tacloban will never be silent.
