The following is from the website of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines:
Significance of the First Quarter Storm of 1970
Statement in Celebration of its 40th Anniversary
By Prof. JOSE MARIA SISON
Founding Chairman, Kabataang Makabayan
Founding Chairman, Communist Party of the Philippines
We are happy to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the First Quarter Storm of 1970. This was the series of protest mass actions, which began on January 25, 1970 and continued up to March of 1970. It is chronicled by Jose F. Lacaba’s Days of Disquiet and Nights of Rage and commented upon by Amado Guerrero’s First Quarter Storm of 1970.
At the beginning, ten thousand students, urban poor youth, workers and peasants massed in front of Congress in order to express themselves against the anti-national and anti-democratic policies of the Marcos regime and against the excessive spending of public money to reelect Marcos as president.
Their peaceful demonstration was brutally attacked by the police with truncheon and gunfire upon the signal of Marcos himself after delivering his “state of the nation address”. The demonstrators fought back for several hours with bare fists, wooden handles of placards and stones.
