Today in history: Marcos on the First Quarter Storm
Everyone else is showing him their cards which he's keeping close to his chest
I put together a YouTube Playlist, #ML50 through Newsreels, which aimed to display the history of Martial Law, the prelude and aftermath to its formal existence from 1972-1981, can become more accessible by viewing newsreel footage from the era. This includes reports by independent media, as well as state propaganda. Together, these videos provide a never-before-experienced immersive review of the end of the Third Republic, the dictatorship (the New Society and the New Republic), and People Power which created the Fifth Republic.
To be sure, Ferdinand E. Marcos’d diary-keeping was of a different kind: not a fundamentally personal reflection but rather a private rehearsal of public points to be made. Still, it provides a front row seat to his plans and thinking —as he wanted to be seen by posterity. Today’s entry marks the conclusion of the events of the First Quarter Storm:
Saturday, January 31, 1970
10:00 AM
I write this tonight having been a little occupied last night during the demonstration or riot. I am glad I was able to hold back on the repeated requests to fire at the rioters, the first request when they took over a fire truck burned it and rammed it against Gate 4 broke the lock and rushed into the compound near the new Administration Bldg, the second when they threatened to do the same on Gate 3.
Have delivered a TV speech, called all the mayors of Metropolitan Manila and Gen. Rodriguez to work out a coordinated plan. Mayor Villegas kept explaining why the MPD police did not come to help us in Malacañang (nor the fire trucks of the MFD either).
Conferred with the military (Sec. of Nat Def, Chief of Staff, Chiefs of the major services and their staffs.)
Then with the political leaders.
Most felt there should be no repression. So I have had to delay the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. We will await developments. I understand the demonstrators will hit the PNB and Metropolitan Branches next. The PCC demonstration of Prudente was called off. But I gather there will be a big demonstration next Tuesday and/or Mar. 3rd.
When they do so again, they may be armed with firearms. In the meantime I can only gnash my teeth and wait.
These are difficult days for everybody. But I pity the citizenry caught in the crossfire last night. For the rioters were sniping at the MPD, Metrocom & soldiers with .22’s.
I suppose that the people now sympathize with me, specially if these vandals continue their destructive anarchy.
But Chino Roces still seemed hostile in the meeting with the publishers when I requested support for my position in the matter of the rioters. And Teddy Locsin tonight could not see in it anything but that reform must come by violent means. I had forgotten that he had always written sympathetically of Mao Tse Tung.
We should ride this out with patience and perseverance.
Teddy apparently was warning me that if there was repression by the arrest of the leaders of the communist movement, there would be retaliation and Central Luzon would be transferred to Manila with the slums becoming the jungle.
If I let these fears deter me from fighting communism then we are lost. But I must continue to restrain myself lest we lose the support of the people by a stance of tyranny.
Our special feature, The First Quarter Storm through the eyes of Ferdinand E. Marcos, gives us the condensed version of events:
Prior to the scrapping of the 1935 Constitution, presidents would deliver their State of the Nation Address in January, at the Legislative Building in Manila.
On January 26, 1970, President Marcos, who had been inaugurated for an unprecedented full second term less than a month earlier, on December 30, 1969 (see Pete Lacaba’s satirical account, Second Mandate: January 10, 1970), was set to deliver his fifth message to the nation.
The classic account of the start of what has come to be known as the First Quarter Storm is Pete Lacaba’s The January 26 Confrontation: A Highly Personal Account, February 7, 1970 followed by his And the January 30 Insurrection, February 7, 1970. From another point of view, there is Kerima Polotan’s The Long Week, February 7, 1970. Followed by Nap Rama’s Have rock, will demonstrate, March 7, 1970.
And there, is of course, the view of Ferdinand E. Marcos himself.
January 23, 1970 and January 24, 1970 were mainly about keeping an eye out on coup plots and the opposition, as well as reshuffling the top brass of the armed forces and picking a new Secretary of National Defense.
January 25, 1970 was about expressing his ire over the behavior of student leaders.
January 27, 1970 and January 28, 1970 were spent housekeeping –talking to police generals– and warning the U.S. Embassy they had better not get involved. Marcos began to further flesh out the rationale for his forthcoming emergency rule.
On January 29, 1970 Marcos rather angrily recounted receiving a delegation of faculty from his alma mater, the University of the Philippines; and reports in his diary that a very big student protest is due the next day.
The next day would prove to be even more explosive than the day of Marcos’ State of the Nation Address: the attack on Malacañan Palace by student protesters. Marcos writes about it in his January 30, 1970 diary entry.
For an overview of the events of that day, see Pete Lacaba’s And the January 30 Insurrection, February 7, 1970. This was another in what would turn out to be historic reportage on historic times; as counterpoint (from a point of view far from enamored of the students) see Kerima Polotan’s account mentioned above.
The next day, January 31, 1972, Marcos further fleshed out his version of the student attack on the Palace, and begins enumerating more people to keep an eye on –politicians, media people; he also mentions the need to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus –eventually.
For an overview of the First Quarter Storm, see also Manuel L. Quezon III’s The Defiant Era, January 30, 2010.