Post-Colonial Manila - Collective Movements & Counter-Managing City Crisis, 1946-1986

8/6/2019 Post-Colonial Manila - Collective Movements & Counter-Managing City Crisis, 1946-1986

1/26

Chapter 7

Collective Movements & Counter-Managing the Post-Colonial CityCrisis

Interventions from Below,1946-1986

Squatters versus State: Defensive Tactics & Territorial

Protectionism, 1946-1970

Defensive tactics, territorial protectionism and vertical mobilisation were the hal lmarks of infant

postwar squatter movements. The invo luted cosmo logy o f this movement consisted of a tabula

rasa of disparate community organisations whose affiliates were often divided along ethno-

linguistic lines, gender, social status, place of origin and trade, but were nevertheless

organisational conduits by which squatters maintained and reproduced territorial cohesion,

stability and order, functional management and general material improvements in the

communities.1

Often employing instrumentalist strategies by banding together into separate unified

voters blocs in an attempt to solicit scarce collective goods2

(which given the marginality of

hous ehold economies only external forces like the state can furnish), co mmunity organisations

were linked to the wider polity and the state by elite party machineries through traditional

patron-client bonds.

The pragmatic and competitive nature of vertical mobilisation and the prom ise of

instant, albeit ephemeral, relief from conditions of severe constraints that the latter conjure

invariably raised formidable barriers against horizontal solidarity and the emergence of class-

based politics in the communities.3 Paradoxically, while instrumentalism generally delivered


2/26

nominal material dividends and despite the manipulative character of popul ist mobi lisation, as

Leeds and Leeds (1976) in their study of Latin American squatter movements once noted, it

provided a buffer between squatters and uncontrollable externalities and allowed a degree of

severability from external events.4

But when clientist and instrumentalist venues were occluded by the common threat of

state orchestrated eviction, re locat ion and resettlement programs, or where squatters had been

endlessly made to run the gauntlet of broken official assurances on delivery of demanded

collective consumption variables, comm unity organ isations under given circumstances did

realign and h orizontally gel in defence of domici le and domain. These local showers of early

squatter resistance were however reactive and defensive responses to external and state

interventions, yet to transcend the tunnel vision of terr itorially specific issues. They tended to

possess neither the ideological, programmatic nor organisational sophistication of their

progenies emerging in the intervening period of the 70s and 80s.

In Manila, the Tondo Foreshore land, the largest agglomeration of squatter and slum

communities and the hi storical ep icentre o f prewar proletarian and squatter radicalism, was

again to serve as the centre o f gravity for the fledgling postwa r squatter m ovement.

Turbulence in Tondo: Defending Domicile and Domain

The Tondo Foreshore land (TF) squatters struggle for domicile and domain stretches way back

in the early 1950s and formed the pioneering prototype for contem porary squatter movements

in the Philippines.

Mounting demand from the TF settlers for the subdivision and sale of land articulated

by scattered small tenant associations in the comm unities , elicited ini tial state response through

an executive proclamation in 1950 (PN 187) alienating a parcel of land in the TF as a site of low

cost housing projects and defining the territorial boundaries of the concession.5

This was

quickly followed a year after by a congressional act (RA 559) providing for the sale of lots to

lessees and bonafide occupan ts. Paying lip service to its commitment, the state, however, never

enforced these laws, which were apparently designed primarily to gain political capital and


3/26

diffuse discontent among the squ atters.

Offi cial inert ia led to renewed grassroots pressures and the fusion of formerly dispersed

tenant agitat ion into a single unified voice, the Federation of Tondo Land Tenants Assoc iation

(FTLTA). With squatter ranks t ightly closed, the FTLAs lobbying clout finally paved the way for

the passage of the landmark Republic Act 1597 in 1956, formally granting the TF settlers and

lessees legal claim on land at a price of not more than 5 pesos per sq m without down payment

for a 15-year amortisation period at 4% interest. With th is victory, the federation won officia l

recognition as solo legitimate representative of the squatters in future negot iations with the

state. Continued agitation yielded yet further bounty when congress reviewed and amended (RA

2439) the p revious law, thereby extending the coverage of the o riginal concession.6

But while th e early squatter mov ement did score sign ificant points, it was a Pyrrhic

victory of sorts, for it signalled the gradual erosion of the celebrated FTFLAs internal cohesion

and solidarity. In fact, the real score behind the legislative largesse consisted of a divisive

stratagem apparently aimed at dividing squatter ranks with in the commu nity by endow ing some

and excluding others.

To begin with, only one-third of the entire TF area was included in the scope of the 1956

Act, creating as such a geographi cal dichotomy that split the community into the entitled Old

TF residents and the disinherited larger majo rity living in the New TF or two-th irds of the area

not covered by the law. And even when the 1959 amendment was passed expanding coverage

to the la tter, the New TF settlers were never able to get the Bureau of Lands to process the ir

claims. Despite the amendment, officials insisted that this waterfront area should be reserved

for port and harbor facilities. In the end, while the FTFLA won the battle it actually lost the war.

In the face of selective state generosity, the federation was demobilised and eventually

decimated.7

When organised resistance lost steam, state counter-offensive eventually shifted to

high-gear. In 1961, a presidential (PN 788) reduced the size of the disposable TF area drawn

by the previous acts , fo llowed by a muscle-flex ing order issued by the city government to

decongest a large portion of the 56 hec tare Zone One at the southern side of the TF on the

pretext that the squatters there were a public nuisance. Some of the 11,000 evicted families


4/26

from Tondo were then arb itrarily dumped at the far off out-city relocation site of Sapang Palay.

Subsequent legislative sleight of hand in the late 60s and early 70s under the Marcos

administration amounted to the systematic reconquest of terrain won by early squatter

strugg les.

To further chop off the disposable TF area, Marcos thus promulgated Proclamation No.

378 in 1968, superseded three years later by Executive Order 297 declaring a substantial part

of the TF as customs zone and auguring the dissolution of at least 5 of the 8 squatter

communities in Zone One Tondo.8

The denouement of state theatrics on the TF land ques tion

on the eve of Martial Law in 1972 was con noted by an array of 28 rubber stamp laws, which

basically turned a blind eye to the squatters clamour for security of tenure and landownership.9

State rigmarole on the land issue and the impending threat of large-scale evictions

sparked organised resistance once again in the late 60s. Attempts t o resuscitate community

defences climaxed in 1969 when survi ving community organisations from the defunct FTFLA

regrouped to form the Coun cil of Tondo Foreshoreland Community Organisations (CTFCO),

Tondos hitherto most comprehensive confederacy of squatter groups. Parenthetically, it is

worth noting that the renaissance of squatter radicalism in Tondo occurred in the critical

context of polarisation in the wider polity at the close fo the 60s and ear ly 70s,a nd co incided

well with growing nationalist ferment elsewhere among Leftist students and militant peasant

and proletarian movements then assaulting the state in mass demonstrations, pickets and

strikes.

Although the gathering momentum of the nationalist protest movement pulled the

Tondo community organisations into the political mainstream, they did not necessarily share

the strategic ideology, nor political agenda of the former, and neither relinquished inherite d

territorial nor protectionist inclinations.

Consequently, while the CTF CO geared to resume the battle for landowner ship rights

(invoking unredeemed laws like the 1956 Act and its amending RA 2439) and was initially

successful in mobilising com munity activism on the land issue (e.g. in a 5,000 strong mass rally

outside the pres idential palace in March 1970), it was however apparently poorly equipped for

battle. Hewn in the traditional bargaining style of the past, CTFCO leadership eventually


5/26

surrendered, in the process of negotiations with the state, to the forces of co-optation and

corruption. The leadership sell-out inevitably caused the Council to swiftly self-detonate.10

Squatters versus State and World Bank:

From Territoriality to Supra-Territoriality, the Political

Mainstream and the Role of Middle-Operators,

1970-1986

The 70s and 80s were watershed decades that witnessed the metamorphosis of the young

squatter movement from its feet-wetting to walking stages. Two key intervening externalities

greatly influenced the internal dynamics of the movement. On the one hand, increasing state

intervention in urban social space following efforts at modernising the city landscape through

World Bank sponsored urban renewal and upgrading strategies.

Renewal and upgrading programs were chaperoned by systematic and massive

decongesting drives that inadvertently amplified and homogenised the threat against squatter

territorial autonomy intra, inter-city and nationwide, and provided the objective push to the

bourgeoning squatter resentment and resistance. On the other hand, new ideological,

programm atic and o rgan isational perspectives b rought i nto the communities by radical and

reformist middle-operating actors, furnished the subjective shove, eventually drawing the

movement from tradition al instrumenta list modes of political parti cipation in the direc tion of

horizontal solidarity and mobilisation and class-based politics.

Traversing the evolutionary scale, the squatter movement developed from the original

cocoon of spontaneous and temporal organisations to federations, super-federations, intra-city,

inter-city, sectoral, multi-sectoral and national alliances by 1984. Concur rently, programmatic

frequencies shifted from territorially defined community issues to broad, supra-territorial,

national and structural stakes. Growing into a formidable social force, squatter militants flanked

the vast urban and national anti-dictatorship movement which successfully dislodged the

authoritarian regime in 1986. This demonstration of peoples power to which the populist

Corazon Aquino panegyrically credits her political victory, formed the prophetic message

evangelised 16 years earlier by the innovative organi sers of ZOTO in Tondo, recogn ised as the


6/26

mothe r of the modern squatter movement:11

Present society has two manifesting powers. If you have m oney, you h ave power.

But if you are less fortunate, like mo st of us, the on ly power that we have is peoples

power. If we are well-organised we can demand change; we can dictate, or even

destroy those who oppose us, because we all manifest power.

In the early 70s onwards, Tondo was to be the c rucial amph itheatre of experimenta l grassroots

counter-management technologies. Pitted against sophisticated state and World Bank

technocratic slum upgrading and sites and services strategies, were n ew modes of commu nity

organising which, according to an author, succeeded in dismantling some of the cultural

barriers to meaningful peoples par ticipation and introduced some real changes in the power

structu res of the communities which used them.12

Breaking the Culture of Silence, Community

Organisations and Cadres - The Alinskyite and National

Democratic Avant-Garde

From the ashes of the disbanded CFTCO emerged novel trends in community organ ising in Zone

One at Southern TF, the waterfront area most vu lnerable to state urban renewal and upgrading

plans as well as the proposed expansion of an international and fisheries port complex in the

early 70s.

Following the CFTCO exit, 20 local organisations in Zone One reentered the arena of

community struggle, coalescing into the ad hoc Zone One Tondo Temporary Organisation

(ZOTTO) in Octo ber 1970. ZOTTO would serve as a preparatory spr ingboard for the systematic

reorganisation of community resistance. This pre-formative process was crucially oiled by

innovative methodologies and skills infused via a progressive cadre of social and church w orkers

steeped in the A linsky tradition community organising. Veering away from vintage brands of

philanthropic and paternalistic Church invo lvement among the poor, this Alinskyite avant-garde

banded together into the Philippine Council on Community Organisation (PECCO) and initiated

ZOTTOs ri tes of passage from traditional clien tist strategies to more self-consc ious community

organisations as centres of grassroots power. 13


7/26

While the Alinsky rec ipe perhaps did little to revolutionise the squatter movem ents traditional

territorially defined issues and the goal of conserving community autonomy, it represented a

technical revolution in that it transformed rag-tag community organisations into effective

fighting forces to realise precisely these unredeemed objectives.

Here, we wil l detour briefly into the major precepts of Alinskyite theory before detailing

its actual practice in the Philippines through ZOTTO and its immediate descendants . A University

of Chicago trained sociologist and greatly influenced by nascent marginality and modernisation

theories of classic urban sociology in the 30s, Saul Alinsky started his career as a

neighbourhood organiser in Chicago in 1936. His thoughts on trade union and community

organising would later inspire emerging community struggles in several major American cities

during the 60s and 70s.

The basic approach of Alinskys mode l was to provide poor and pow erless people with

the only real resource they might have had - their standing and organisational capacity, leading

to mobilisation, confrontation and negotiation, in order to increase their share in the

distribution of wealth and to strengthen their voice in the process of decision making. Alinsky

believed that local self-rel iance was the only antidote against the ris ing spectre of fascism (both

left and right), that he attributed to the trend of increasing political centralisation. Pluralism,

government accountability, local autonomy and widespread citizens participation, were key

elements in the Alinskyite vision of urban politics.

Community organisation in th is contex t was first and foremost a political tool and a new

form of government which would serve as checking and complementary mechanisms to the

insti tutional defects of representative liberal democracy marked by growing bureaucratisation,

centralisation, corruption and manipulation of info rmation.

Less an ideologue than a pragmatic organiser, A linsky w as convinced that unless people

were mobilised they could not be organised, and certainly not around models, but effectively

around the defence of their immediate interests. Guided by this principle, he sketched the

general outline of community organisings strategy and tactics, one which was to become the

standard ha ndbo ok for Alinsky-inspired community m obilisations in the US a nd elsewhere.


8/26

In his book, The City and the Grassroo ts, sociologist Manuel Castells (1983) summarizes

Alinskys tactical Abcs:14

... to organise people a sensible issue must be picked, a clear opponent identified,

and the people mobilised against the opponent on the basis of such an issue.

Victory for the issue has to be attaina ble because only when people win do they feel

that the e ffort has been worthwhile. On the basis o f the victory, the organisation has

been established, new issues selected that, if solved for the benefit of the

commu nity, will have broadened the audience of the organisation in a self-spi ralling

process ..., the main outcome of the organisation has been th e organisation itself,

its influence, its representatives, its internal democracy and its growing status on

the voice of a territorial ly defined communi ty ... the basic goals of the struggle have

been to provide the people with the basic resource they seek: power. Once

grassroots empowerment has been achieved and the unity of the people preserved,

the democratic institutions start working in the ir favour and the economic intere sts

come under control.

Play ing the crucial role of catalyst in the Alinsky model is the organiser, who as Castells

noted:15

... is an outsider, a professional, devoted to the community but external to its

interests and cleavages, sharing the principles of communi ty part icipation but cool

and distant enough to rely solely on his skills, training and experience ... called

upon by the community, and has to leave the community as soon as the

organisation is solidly established an d led by its own elected leaders.

As the main thrust of the Alinsky approach was to organ ise and mobil ise people as they are,

seemingly without refe rence to any distinct ideology, it was essentially a trend towards populist

revivalism. In the US as well as in the Philippines, church organisations acted as natural allies

and channels for the diffusion the Alinskyite doctrine - the action-confrontational concept of

community mobilisation and organisation.

The in terim ZOTTO, later to be formally constituted in1971 into the Zone One Tondo

Organisation (ZOTO) was inducted in the ways of Alinsky through a series of training seminars


9/26

conducted between 1970-1972 in Tondo by a protestant minister from the World Council of

Churches, Rev. Herbert White, along with other PECCO organisers.16

Armed with new-found

organising powers and more sophisticated skills, ZOTO was successfully able to combine

community self-management programs with effective lobbying techniques in close encounters

with authorities.

True to Alinsky s forecast, the calculated victories of ear ly ZOTO mobilisations did prop

up community self-confidence and the credibi lity of the organisation, eventually stimulating the

expansion of its base of recruits. These victories demonstrated the advantages of cohesive

action as opposed to the incoherency of multi-s tranded ver tical clientist bargaining modes, and

drew horizontal solidarity lines ac ross the commun ity, albeit around local stakes. Some of these

initial experiences made ZOTO legendary and have by now become part of community and

squa tter mo vement mytholog y.

Rebuking the Cardina l of Man ilas announcement of un ilateral Church plans to start a

large-scale housing project in Tondo, the provisionary ZOTTO cleverly used the visit of Pope

Paul IV to Manila in November 1970 as opportune occasion to argue its case. Gaining me dia

mileage, confrontational actions with the Cardinal, forced him to balk and concede to a list of

demands which gave ZOTTO legitimate status and a stronger voice in future Church relief

operations in Tondo. When a savage typhoon hit the area, leaving some 2 ,000 squatter families

homeless two weeks before the papal visit, the organisation w as able to quick ly negotiate for

and cha nnel non-government al aid to the v ictims amid the pandemonium of state relief work.

On the strategic land question, ZOTTOs tactical acumen was equally spectacular. In a

bid to thaw of ficial ice on the implementation of the precedent 1956 Act as amended, to which

the Tondo settlers claims on land were tied but never delivered, ZOTTO led 2,000 Tondo

residents in a rally outside Congress o n February 1979, demanding that the government fulfil

its legal obligations, sponsor a bill in favour of those excluded by said laws and to extend

appropriate infrastructure improvements in the area.

Undaunted by eviction threats caused by impending government warehouse construction

plans in the com munity, ZOTTO in protest a month after spearheaded a sensational land

invasion of the Public Works Compound at Parola as an alternative relocation site for 400


10/26

squatter fami lies to be affected by the project. With sol id community back-up, th is occupation

force held its ground, outmanoeuvring and compelling the authorities to sanction the

subdivision and distribution of land under strict ZOTTO management. Placing a new mark on

the Tondo map, affected slum dwellers and the ir supporters ce lebrated their victory by naming

the new community the Bonifacio Village after the revered Tondo-born folk hero, Andres

Bonifacio who led the national liberation struggle against Spanish colonialism in 1896.

Putting spokes on the wheels of sundry state attempts at controversial condominium

construction, selective evictions to give way for infrastructure and other projects and biting

offi cial indif ference on the land issu e at every turn, the ever expanding scoresheet of triumphant

local ZOTTO- led battled between 1970-1972 earned both the awe o f pre-martial law authorities

and widespread prestige within the local community. These achievements magnetically pulled

new recruits into the organization, mul tiplying its membership from an original 20 in 1970 to

51during its constituting congress the next year, peaking a t 113 affiliate groups by the mid-

70s.17

The ZOTTO experience was a milestone in two key respects: it heightened the sense of

community power and solidarity among the Tondo masses an d even m ore importantly it initially

consolidated and tempered that power by introducing new technological norms in grassroots

counter-management and modern concepts of democratic mass organisation.18

Meanwhile, cadres other than Alin sky expo nents were p roselytising for yet more radical

alternative modes of organ ising, comm unity conscio usness and politica l agenda elsewhere in

Tondo and other urban poor areas in the city. Coding orthodox commun ity issues of m arginality

and poverty in Marxist terminology and connecting them to the structural operation of

imperialism, feudalism and bureaucratic capitalism, activists from student and youth groups

of the Leftist national democratic movement like the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and the

Samahan ng Demokrat ikong Kabataan (SDK) plus cadres from the c landestine Comm unist Party

of the Philipp ines (CPP), familiarised quite a few, specia lly among the urban poor youth, with the

basics of class-based politics and strategic class-coalition strategies.

In contradistinction to the Alinsky model, mass mobilisations in the national democratic

context would be principally based on fundamental multi-sectoral and national rather than what


11/26

was perceived to be myopic local issues. And while Alinskyites tended to equate peoples power

with community power and au tonomy, for their more radical counterparts it was synonymous

to national liberation and state contro l by the oppressed masses. Since the state was, according

to the latter, the coercive expression of elite class rule, popular political power could not be

decisively established short of armed revolution.19

When Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972, he unleashed a major crackdown on the Left,

flushing out militant organisers from the urban poor communities, who were then either

arrested or jailed or were forced to go underground. Although Alinsky inspired organisations

like ZOTO were also occasional ly harassed by military and police forces, they came out relativ ely

unscathed and for a time belonged to a minority of mass organisations tolerated by the

author itarian state. With above ground mobility, Alinsky methodology brought the open squatter

movement to new heights throughout m ost of the 70s, whil e radical poli tics through clandestine

and semi-legal fo rms silently worked its way back into the c ommunities, g radually regaining

initiative by the end of the decade and into the ear ly 80s in step with rising political polarisation

in Philippine society and the upsurge of a broad anti-dictatorship movement.

Building the Citizens Army and Battling Behemoths,

1972-1982

The TF was a s trategic beachhead in the newly installed state autocracys offensive to modernise

the city landscape, and it did not hesitate to wield the absolute powers of martial law to fulfil

this vision. Earlier on, budding state attempts at modernising port facil ities and communication

in the TF (signified by, e.g. the reduction of orig inal squatter land concession in 1968 and the

enlargement of the Custom s Zone in 1971) were forestalled by both stiff squatter opposition

and the inadequacy of complementary coercive policies to add teeth to these efforts.

Vindictively, Marcos backed up the inauguration of renewed plans for urban renewal and

deve lopment in the area with the stinging bite of violent measures. Hand in glove with puniti ve

actions against outspoken ZOTO leaders, the Bureau of Customs embarked on a massive

demolition crusade in Zone One Tondo, pursuant to a presidential order (LOI 19) in 1972


12/26

authorising the removal of shanties and illegal structures from public land. With exaggerated

zeal, official bulldozers were flattening 50 houses a day, and had the operation been fully

completed, it would have annihilated five of Zone Ones 80 shantytowns.20

With instant reflex, ZOTO, togeth er with Church and other sympathetic groups like the

MKZ (Friends of ZOTO) vehemently repulsed the bulldozer onslaught through a series of

confrontational actions including public appeal through the mass media, delegations to the

presidential palace, dialogues with the bishop and officials from the housing and squatter

relocation agency (PAHRA) and other concerned authorities. In the face of swelling publicity and

public support against the demolitions, operations abruptly ground to a halt, forcing

embarrassed off icials to tactically retreat. Reluctantly, the latter conceded to a list of squatter

demands viz., the review of the scope of the Customs Zone, a suitab le relocation si te for families

to be displaced by public works projects, and the consultation of ZOTO in the execution of

urban renewal. This opening skirmish marked the beginning of the marathon see-saw battle

between state-World Bank and the TF squatters in the years ahead.21

To maintain initiative and vigilant of yet larger displacements to come, ZOTO convoked

its assembly in late 1972 to draft and ratify an alternative rehabilitation plan dubbed as the

Proposed Scheme for the Permanen t Solution to Zone One Tondos Squa tter Problems. Publicly

released in February 1973, the document was also submitted to bo th Marcos and visiting Bank

representatives who were at that juncture in preliminary bilateral talks to out line and flesh out

the mechanics of the Manila Urban Development Program (MUDP), which incorporated among

others the TF renewal project.

The Proposed Scheme.. was a path-breaking document and advanced an alternative

approach to hitherto counterproductive relocation palliatives. An approach which was to be

plagiarised by urban management and would presage subsequent state-World Bank upgrad ing

and sites and services strategies in the TF and elsewhere. Providing the crux of squatter

alternat ives were four outstanding points namely, the suspension of demol itions, the resolut ion

of the land question through the implementation o f the 1956 Act as amended, in-city relocation

of displaced families to a preferred reclaimed site at the adjacent Dagat-Dagatan (DD), and the

creation of a special committee to synchronise government plans with the TD squatter


13/26

interests.22

Dramatising both commitment and competence in the resolution of the squatter

problem, ZOTO simultaneously star ted and completed the construction of its first model house

in one of the TF shantytowns funded with a $1 million grant from a German protestant non-

governmental organisation - a symbolic testament against faltering state housing initiatives.

And since the land issue was universal for the wh ole TF and not only confined to the Zone One

commu nities, ZOTO rallied groups from still other par ts of Tondo to build a veritable citizens

army, culminating on October 1973 in the formation of the Tondo-wide Ugnayan ng mga

Mamamayan ng Tondo Foreshoreland (Citizens Union of TF). With the birth of the ZOTO-

Ugnayan alliance, the process of community reunification following after the earlier

disintegration of the squatter movement in the late 60s came to full circle and corresponded

almost literally to the rebirth of the defunct CTFCO.23

The consolidation of community support bettered theodds for subsequent ZOTO-

Ugnayan tactical manoeuvres in terms of influencing the direction and shape of official TF

deve lopment policies. As noted in the preceding chapter, bilatera l del ibera tions between 1973-

1976 on the Tondo renewal program between were marked by contending approaches between

the hardline relocation preferences of the Marcos autocracy and the soft-line on-site

development orientation of the World Bank. Sensitively utilising this division to bring policy-

making closer to the squatter agenda, ZOTO-Ugnayan concen trated and intensified its overtures

toward the more flexible W orld Bank soft-liners, who had a rela tively liberal attitude in dea ling

with the organisation and whose position fell more in step with squatter perception.

Re-echoing the message of the Proposed Schem e ..., ZOTTO-Ugna yan dialogued w ith

several World Bank missions, p resented reports and recommendations on the conditions and

options of the TF dwellers and lobbied for active participation in project planning and

implementation. Buckling to the heat applied by its World Bank partners and the squatter

federation, the state gradually in corporated slum upgrad ing and in situ development as centra l

axis of offi cial renewal input s in Tondo . Two tandem decrees in 1974 signal led this tilt: PD 569,

mandating the expropriation of DD and contiguous areas in Navota s 3 km north of the TF as

resettlement site for those displaced by the renewal program complementary to the mass ive


14/26

reblocking and upgrading of the TF. At the same time, the Tondo Foreshoreland Development

Autho rity (TFDA) was created by virtue of PD 570 to execute plans (whose functions would later

be absorbed by the NHA in 1975) and through a survey determine the legitimate beneficiaries

of the u pgrading program.24

While the tentative transition of official strategy gave Bank bureaucrats reason to rejoice,

these reforms were skeptically welcomed and quickly rejected by the squatters insofar as they

practically abrogated favourable laws like the 1956 Act, leaving the land tenure issue largely

unresolved. Deliberate attempts by the state to undercut grassroots participation by assign ing

invented barangay lea ders25

the role of chief intermediaries between the project managers like

the TFDA and the co mmunity, constituted yet another lightning rod that p rovoked resentment

and resistance in the TF comm unity and ZOTO-Ugnayan leaders.

In protest, the federation led 5,000 squatters in a historic march to the presidential

palace in November 1974. Being the first demonstration ever to occur under martial rule, this

event, known as the Alay Lakad (or Walk for a Cause), generally broke the silence of the

urban mass movement and heralded the landmark La Tondena distillery workers strike in late

1975. That strike sparked the first great wave of strikes ever to rock Metro-Manila since Marcos

came to power, wh ich involved a total of 40,000 workers from various fac tories in the city. The

star tling show of squatter solidarity sought official restitution on a score of demands either only

tamely addressed or completely circumven ted by the recent reforms:26

Minimal relocation. According to the original plans endorsed, 50% of the familiesaffected by the renewal program were des tined for out-city relocation in contravention

of the maximum retention principle or the stock 75% figure proposed by the World Bank .

Democratic partici pation. To eliminate obstacles to formal g rassroots involvement inthe program , project managers should coordinate with a community citizens committee

(CC) represented by both ZOTO-Ugnayan and barangay leaders, with the appropriate

representation of the latter in the TFDA.

Permanent solution to the TF problem. As earlier formulated by the federation, thispoint should be implemented by the new TFDA, reaffirming the principles of on-site

development and in-city relocation to the preferred DD resettlement site.


15/26

The l and question. Scrapping of the recent dec rees, which completed skirted the landtenure issue in the TF and a lternatively the promulgation of a new law which decisively

addresses the ditto.

The officia l rejoinder to mounting opposition from below a mounted to the abdication of the

conservative relocation policy on the strategi c leve l and the partial reconciliation of some of the

squatter movements immediate claims. Initial detente on r ival strategic view s came in the shape

of a tripartite agreement between the federation, TFDA and the World Bank in February 1975.

Here, the renewal-relocation prejudices of the TF program w ere dec isively yanked out in favour

of slum upgrading and on-site development. Marcos also ordered the cessation of eviction

activities in the area, guaranteed in-city relocation and the expansion of the DD resettlement

site to furnish room for the expected overspill, and promised management consultation with

the citizens committee on project affairs.27

However, in sharp contrast to the fast delivery of these concessions, Marcos dawdled on

the strategic resolution of the land dispute. Eight months later, he issued PD 814, again

revoking previous acts and prescribing a leasehold land tenure system for TF-DD with right to

purchase after five years. Dodging the age-old popular demand for freehold rights and

immediate own ership and redundantly junking the auspicious laws, this decree inevitably led

to renewed tension and sent the squatters back on the warpath.

To the credit of tight community solidarity and unrelenting mobilisations, the TF had

been up to this poin t relatively spared from the wrath of summary evic tion and relocat ion drives

otherwise wielded in other parts of the city in 1974-1975. Apparently, state tolerance towards

the TF squatters, as exclusive beneficiaries of the regimes showcase development and

benevolence, served as window-dressing to the basic coercive proclivities of urban policy

elsewhere. Strong resistance to the decree ultimately invited fierce repression from the

autocracy.

Legally fortifying a new wave of evictions to break out in the latter 70s (engendered

among others by the F irst Lady s beau tification campaigns i n 1976-1977 to give way for the

const ruction of 14 five star hote ls, an international convention centre, etc), Marcos passed the

infamous Anti -Squatting Law in 1975, which, as we may recall, meant the criminalisation of


16/26

squatting. Intimidation and arrest of squatter militants ensued. In this context, ZOTO-Ugnayan

moved to beef up its ranks in 1976 and linked up with other community organisations28

from

the nearby munic ipalities of Malabon and Navotas north of the TF, coalescing into a new and

wider umbrella organisation, the Alyansa ng Maynila at Karatig Pook Laban sas Demolisyon at

PD 814 (The Alliance of Manila and Nearby A reas Ag ainst Demo lition an d PD 814).

Ugnayan-Alyansa directed its main artillery against both the decree and unabated

demolitions and counterposed an alternative Peoples Program, which recapitulated the

principal precepts of ZOTOs pioneering rehabilitation scheme - i.e. on-site development, in-

city relocation and democratic participation via a special commiss ion with bilateral

representation from the Alyansa and government.

The Peoples Program epitomised in a sense the evolutionary diversification of the nature

of the squatter movement from territorial to trans-territorial solidarity and called for the

standardisation of once exclusive TF urban policies across the board in favour of other

squatter communities in the metropolis. At the 1976 UN Habitat Conference , copies of th e

Ugnayan-Alyansa drawn Peoples Decree were scattered among the delegates, draw ing world

attent ion and publicity to the squatters cause in the Philippines. Reminisc ent of the Peoples

Program, the Decree denounced PD 814 as an autocratic legislation issued over the heads of the

people and the leasehold ar rangement it defined.

The Decree did not merely reiterate the Programs trans-territorial features , it even went

a step further by advancing a new concept of mass housing - predicated on social rather than

private ownership of land to be managed by peop les cooperatives - and sketching the general

contours of low-cost housing in the cou ntry.29

Moreover, it criticised the foreign and dependent

bent of official development strategy as the villain behind poverty and underdevelopment,

taking up the cudgels for an alternative self-reliant approach. These technical and analytical

innovations marked the evolving maturity of the movement as potent counter-management

force, transcending community borders into the horizons of national urban planning and policy

making. Parallel to the Vancouver event, a huge manifestation organised by the Ugnayan-

Alyansa was violently quelled by the regime and ended in the wanton arrest of 2,000

demonstrators.


17/26

Ironically, escalating state repression and intervention through World Bank funded SIR-ZIP

upgrading and sites and services programs in tandem with vigorous eviction-relocation

campaigns in the latter 70s metropolitanized and later nationalised both inbui lt cont radictions

of the latter (see preceding chapter) and the external threat to territorial security and community

autonomy. The rising homogenisation of squatter experiences engendered by authoritarian

urban planning fertilised the soil in which squatter federations and community groups in the

genre of ZOTO-Ugnayan would later sprou t.

In 1977,, these young organisations joined hands with their seniors to form the Ugnayan

ng Mamamayang Tagalunsod (UMT or U nion of City Citizens), a super-federation uniting

organised squatters from 10 municipalities in Metro-Mani la. UMT synthesized the lessons and

gains of previous struggles in a 1978 statement containing both nostalgic and novel elements.

Famil iar issues such as peoples participation in urban planning, termination of demolition and

sites and services programs co-extended with a mosaic of structural dem ands, initially adverted

to in the text of the earlier-noted Peoples Decree, but now more explicitly worded, including

calls for nationalist industrialisation, agrarian reform, price rollback and employment

generation.

30

Ultimately, however, the ferocity of state attacks on maverick com munity leaders caused

significant organisational disruptions, thereby forcing the squatter movement to exercise

restrain t in the use of confron tationa l tactics.

Overall, open hostilities with the state dramatically declined between 1977-1982, and

the movement went into a deceptive hiatus returning to more decentralised forms of local

community struggles. Organisations like ZOTO retreated to territorial and community politics

denoted by e.g. tactical attempts to protract the execution of reblocking program and

negotiations with the state housing agency to reduce development costs , etc. In the meantime,

their more radical and left-leaning counterparts were slowly gaining momentum, conso lidat ing

their underground network and diffusing radical analysis and organising technologies in their

squatter communities.31


18/26

From Citizens Army to Coalition Force and

the Role of Middle-Operators, 1982-1986

With mainstream squatter movement in abeyance, autocratic urban management enjoyed wider

mobility in executing dual slum upgrading and decongesting-relocation strategies through

World Bank financed nationwide and metro-wide slum and zonal improvement programs (SIR-

ZIP). As a remedy, however, slum upgrading gave only token relief to the accelerating

metropolitan squatter and slum crisis, a relation w hich would further deteriorate in the wake of

success ive dilutions of the programs original ambi tion and scope to only 253 of the citys total

415 blighted areas identified by the public housing authority.

In a bid to systematically eliminate the remaining 162, metropolitan governess Imelda

Marcos, after her controvers ial tour of the city s slums and squatter areas in June 1982, declared

a vicious all-out demoli tion- relocation blitzkr ieg (alias The Last Campaign) and mobil ised the

city mayors, local ward or barangay leaders and police in a composite Anti-Squatting Task

Force.

To a large extent, the offensive proved to be a fatal miscalculation. The anxieties and

tens ions generated by the demolitions among the squatters inadver tently (as far as the state was

concerned) recoiled and caused a recombustion of popular militancy. Organisations of the urban

poor quickly surfaced and alliances among them were formed to abort the government

campaign.

Barely a month after Imelda Marcos anti-squatt ing drive, a new federation, the PAMALU

(Unity of the Urban Poor) was born, marking the dress-rehearsal for yet a larger confederation

to emerge soon afte r - the Alliance of the Poor Against Demolition (ALMA). Besides PAMALU, this

anti-demolition alliance included s ix o ther federations: ZOTO, PAMANA (Unity of the People of

Navotas), NAGKASAMA (United Association of the Poor), MAPA (Marik ina Peoples Assembly ), UST

(Union of Associations in Tala) and the PAMBIBO (Unity of the People of Bagong Barrio).32

Though a few of the alliances affiliates like ZOTO were veterans, many had been

tempered in local anti-demolition and community struggles during the 1977-1982 interlude,

developing in antibiosis with the unfolding contradictions of state upgrading and relocation


19/26

strategies. Beyond the impression of spontaneous combustion projected by the resurgence of

open squatter militancy, ALMA was in essence the culmination of spiralling local struggles

beneath the deceptive calm that characterised the mainstream squatter movement after 1977.

PAMANAs experience in the Navotas municipality north of Tondo typifies this process.

There, despite official incantations of maximum retention as an alternative policy to relocation

since mid-1977, slum dwellers and squatters soon faced the peril of massive evictions by the

ealry 80s to make way for World Bank funded infrastructure development projects (e.g. the R-10

highway, fish port and industrial complexes). Consequently, the ten organisations under

PAMANAs umbrella aligned with other local community and workers formations like the

stevedores association to plead their case with Bank officials and the housing authority. As the

negotiations lingered and eventually fell into a coma between 1981-1983 (even after the

creation of A LMA), demolition began in some areas. The PAMANA-led alliance set off a media

campaign in retaliation, assailing the government initiatives, forming committees to barricade

and secure the t argeted areas, administering first aid to potential victims in the impending

showdown with the authorities, and initiating income generating projects to tide the people

through pending the resolution of the deadlock.

33

ALMA s propaganda went beyond the demolition issue, accusing the state of using IMF-

World Bank loans to fund the eviction campaign s in favour of infrastructure development, which

in the final analysis only benefited transnational corporations.34

Rekindled spirits of squatter dissidence intersec ted with the general g roundswe ll of anti-

dictato rship resentment in civil socie ty at large and the alarming advance of a communist-led

armed struggle in the countrys ide. Pol itical agitation, mobilisation and organising by the banned

National Democratic Front (NDF) among peasants, workers and students were snowballing.

These trad itionally volatile groups welcomed the company of otherwise conformist middle class

segments after the flagrant assassination of Senator Benigno Aqu ino in 1983. For the first time,

the middle class was galvanised into action, joining the Left in anti-government street

demonstrations in massive num bers.

Increasingly, disenchanted socia l groups were turn ing to class-coalition strategies to

challenge head on eroding autocratic power in the political mainstream. Horizontal links drew


20/26

quite a few squatters into broad multi-sectoral alliances and formation like the Justice for

Aquino Justice for All (JAJA), the Nationalist Alliance for Justice and Freedom (NAJFD) and

others.35

Alternat ive coalition and class-based stra tegies crystallised mo re distinctively within the

rejuvenated squatter movement when middle-operating Church advocates of the urban poor

and concerned middle class groups, alarmed by the fierce wave of evictions of the Last

Campaign, sponsored the historic National Consultation on Urban Poor Problems in December

1983 to determine urban poor conditions and historically sum-up the experiences of the

organised squatters in the major cities of the country. The principal promoters of this bridge-

building event were the Share Care Apostolate for Poor Settler (SCAPS) and the National

Secretariate for Social Ac tion (NASSA), both agencies of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the

Philippines supporting com munity organisations since the early 70s, Community Organisation

of Philippine Enterprise (COPE), and new groups like the Bishop-Business Conference (BBC) and

the Concernted Citizens of the Urban Poor (CCUP). The latter was formed with the help of SCAPS

and the Justice and Peace Council in 1982 and la ter changed its name to Citizens Coalition for

the Urban Poor in 1986. CCUP emerged as a loose alliance of 100 lawyers, teachers, social

workers and re ligious committed to unify the middle sector, protect their interests and support

the urban poor struggle for decen t housing, employment and democratic rights.36

Clustering together for the first time squat ter organisers from 24 communi ty groups in

Metro-Man ila and eight other cities in a single forum, the consultation was a watershed, in the

sense that it armed the squatter move ment with revolutionising concepts replacing the software

of old with the hardware of new norms on three crucial dimensions.37

Ideologically, the amorphous populist cliches of preceding movem ents were rejected and

replaced by a clear-cut radical framework described by Consultation protagonists as liberati ve,

transformative and holistic. The squa tter struggle is in essence an integral part of the overa ll

class struggle aimed at demolishing and liberating the masses from the fetters of class

oppression and the fundamental refashioning of society into one operating on the basis of

socia l equality and justice. Against the tunnel-v ision of community populism, proponents posed

the panoramic vision of class consciousness.


21/26

Politically, since the object of social struggle was to extinguish the bases of oppressive

structures imputed on neo-colonialism, tyranny, exploitation and repression, the

programmatic agenda of the squatter movement should be broadened from exclusive

community and sectoral issues like demolitions, low income housing and physical environment

(often economic and welfare-oriented in nature), to comprehensive and inclusive multi-sectoral

and national questions. The squatter struggle should be incorporated into the mainstream

political struggle linking up with peasant, proletarian and other sectors in a wide united front

against their common class adversaries.

Organisationa lly, the Alinsky methodology wa s categorically conde mned as the single

most significant factor behind the stagnation of the previous squatter movement, specia lly

during the inte rlude o f silence. Acco rding to the d isclaimer, the movement ow ed its strategic

setbacks to Alinskyite organisational sins, which fostered an over-dependence on leaders

and the myopia of multifarious local and economic issues. Counter-alternatives were

summarised by the Alinskyite detractors in a set of slogans unanimously adopted by the forum

as the flagship of community organising: F rom dole-out to s elf-reliance, from local issues to

national issues, from limited to encompassing; from quantity (numbers) to quality

(commitment), from letter and dialogues to pickets, rallies and barricades.

Given the dearth of documentary evidence, it is difficult to establish the merits and

degree of influence exercised by the underground national democratic movement in the

strategic shift of orientation manifested by the Consultation, but certainly the terminology in

which it was couched and the euphemisms employed were unmistakably suggestive and

sometimes hardly camouflaged. The methodological package introduced consisted of a 3-D

matrix embracing the categories discussed above and disp laying distinct kinship with standard

operational procedures usually associated with the radical cadres of the Left.

Ideologically, therefore, the task of the community organiser was to conscientise the

squatter masses by theoretically and systematically raising their experiences through social

investigation, class analysis, education/proselytisation. Politically, the typology of mass

mobi lisations and st ruggles - local, sectoral and multi-sectoral - correspondingly speci fied the

appropriate forms of action to be taken - local petition-de legation, sectoral petition-delegation,


22/26

multi-sectoral barricades, marches and demonstrations. Organisationally, the main thrust was

towards building multi-sectoral alliances in systematic stages, from contact to core-building,

to the setting up of a federation of sectoral organisations, culminating in multi-sectoral

coalitions.

In the interregnum to fol low up un til the downfall of the Marcos in 1986, the organised

squatter mainstream38

closely navigated along the trajectory charted by the landmark 1983

Consultation. Soon after, a pre-congress preparatory committee was formed on June 1984 to

pave the way for the formalisation of the Coalition of Urban Poor Against Poverty (CUPAP).

CUPAP became by com parison the largest coalition of community organisation in the history of

metropolitan squatter movemen t.

Growing from an original preparatory group of eight to ten intra-municipal squatter

alliances and federations by its first congress in August 1985, this juggernaut coalition force

had an aggregate membership of over 310 local organisations in e ight of Metro-Manilas 17

municipalities, almost five times the c ombined membership of the three other exi sting major

alliances.39

In the wake of coali tion-building followed a resurgence of squatter militancy parallell ing

if not superseding the magnitude and style of the struggles in the early and mid-70s and taking

on more political over tones. The squa tters were back on the streets and the poli tical mainstream

with yet greater leverage to back up demands for tenure rights, socialised mass housing and

to expose the anomalies of state-World Bank delivery programs, official anti-squatter decrees,

infrastructure development, relocation s trategies and the loopholes of reforms like the Urban

Land reform Act.

In the praxis of coalition politics, CUPAP coordinated actions with other squatter

alliances. One notable case was the joint CUPAP-ZOTO campaign against prohibitive

development costs in state housing projects, which climaxed in a Lakbayan o r Peoples March

on March 1985 involving 7,000 protestors from several government resettlement sites outside

Metro-Manila. In yet another case, the coalition spearheaded a huge demonstrat ion of 10,000

peop le in a funeral march condemnin g the m assacre of residents in Tatalon, a metrop olitan

squatter community, as a result of police-backed demolition operations in the area.


23/26

1.Mapping out the plurality of community organisations in the metropolitan slum and squatter

colonies during the pre-martial law period, Laquian reported the existence of diverse associations

ranging from mothers clubs to garlic peelers associations, from youth and womens groups to

fishermens cooperatives and militant tenement organisations, functionally addressing a host of

community needs, e.g. maintenance of peace and order through group protection of members,

improvement and beautification of community environs, provisions of mutual aid, cooperation

and assistance in times of family crisis; and the promotion of health and sanitation in the

localities. Laquian in Sembrano, 1977, op cit: 41-42.

2.See Laquian, Stone and Marcella in UNICEF, 1986, op cit: 29-30.(OBS find unicef?)

3.Ruland, 1985, op cit: 19-20.

4.Leeds & Leeds, 1976.

5.AMAWIM IV, 1991: 4.

6.ZOTO, 1973: 3-4, 7-8; SCAPS, 1983: 20-21, 40-41.

Over and above sectoral issues, the squatter movement entered the political mainstream with

vengeance, playing an active and important role in the broad anti-dictatorship and urban

movement that finally destabilised and dislodged the autocracy in 1986. In this context and

historical node , the urban movement had indeed the insignia of a social movement in the strict

sense of raising class interests beyond city horizons and envisioning the dismantling of

autocratic state power itself.

However, under then prevailing circumstances this political change did not necessarily

nor actually equate to social transformation, but rather to the reinstatement of fragile liberal

democratic state power under the control of that section of the elite once disenfranchised by

the dictatorship. Dislocations and contradictions within the urban m ovement itself would later

unfo ld and sharpen as the Aquino regime wielded the weapons of selective corporatism and

coercion, splitting squatter ranks into distinct reformist and radical blocs. To the extent that

management hardly convalesced from its past weaknesses in curing the urban crisis, repeatedly

dodging instead old unredeemed grass roots expectations on the delivery of collective goods

and the resolution of urban mass poverty, the stage was set for the resumption of critical

compromise and detente within the movement and the revivification of squatter militancy.

Notes


24/26


25/26

their respective local territories. Against these invented leaders were juxtaposed natural

(informal) leaders like those from ZOTO-Ugnayan who were popularly recognised and elected

to their positions by the community. UNICEF, op cit: 31; Sembrano, op cit: 39-41, plus a host

of other studies, e.g. Ruland, 1980, 1985; Bello, 1982; Renne, 1988.

26.Philippine Ecumenical Writing Group, op cit: 66-67; AMAWIM IV, 1990: 5; Sembrano, opcit: 34. On the distillery strike, see Villegas, op cit: 65.

27.Philippine Ecumenical ... ibid: 66-67.

28.Also in these areas, middle-operating Church groups like the Catholic Share and Care

Apostolate for Poor Settler (SCAPS) facilitated the evolution of confrontational community

organisations. 1975-1976 were peak years for ZOTO-Ugnayan, whose internal membership at

this point embraced 113 local organisations. SCAPS, op cit: 43-44.

29.As opposed to regnant policy and praxis on leasehold, where the state assumes the role of

custodian over land, ownership would, according to the proposed concept, be entrusted to thepeoples cooperatives. Land redistribution to the members of the cooperative would be carried

out through the emission and sale of certificate of stocks. van Naerssen, op cit: 7.

30.AMAWIM IV, 1990: 5; van Naerssen, ibid: 11-12.

31.Due to the paucity of documentation and the clandestine nature of Leftist organising, it is

difficult to assess its actual extent of influence. However, on the spot reporting by foreign

journlalists like DeParle seem to lend credence to our assumptions here. DeParle, Washington

Monthly, December, 1987.

32.UNICEF, 1986, op cit: 42-43; AMAWIM IV, 1990: 5; Meijer, op cit: 54-60.

33.Similar struggles were being waged elsewhere even by non-ALMA members, like the SAMA-

SAMA of the Commonwealth community in Quezon city (one of the four metropolitan cities)

which frustrated government eviction attempts through barricades, media campaigns and active

lobbying in Congress for a bill promoting the inclusion of the community into the slum

upgrading program. UNICEF, ibid: 42-43.(?)

34.van Naerssen, op cit: 13-14.

35.AMAWIM IV, op cit: 8.

36.CCUP maintains service programs for evicted families and coordinates with progressive

lawyers groups extending s-c para-legal training and assistance in the communities. Generally,

middle-operating support groups and NGOs have provided assistance to various urban poor

groups in community organising as earlier noted, housing schemes and land tenure. Others help

in information dissemination, fund-raising, generation of livelihood opportunities, upgrading of

s-c micro-entrepreneurs, organisational and management skills, extending credit facilities and

health care, etc. See among others CCUPs Voice of Unity, Oct 1986, Nov 1986; Soontorn, op

cit: 30-34.

37.The analytical categories indulged here are my own and were deduced from my reading of

primary documents arising from the consultation. My interpolations on ideological, political andorganisational dimensions, suggesting kinship with the national democratic mode may be more


26/26

clearly understood should the reader review the main tenets of the radical Left in Guerreros

classic Philippine Society and Revolution, 1970. The reader may also profit from brief

summaries furnished by e.g. Tornquist, 1990 and this authors earlier works, Rojas, 1987, 1992.

For the primary source, see National Consultation on the Urban Poor, 1983.

38.Parenthetically it is worth noting that although certainly there were other communityorganisations continuing to toe the line of Alinskys model, the are strong indications that indeed

the radical multi-sectoral and coalitionist framework predominated the mainstream squatter

movement at this juncture. The charismatic populist Corazon Aquino, who became the rallying

symbol of waxing anti-dictatorship struggle also drew Alinsky-inspired community organisations

into the political mainstream struggle. United by a common adversary - Marcos - both traditions

played an active role in the urban movement. With Aquino snugly at the helm after the political

power shift in 1986, the honeymoon between the radical and reformist streams soon broke

down (see next chapter).

39.Namely, SAMA-SAMA (Poor Peoples Association for Human and Just Housing), ZOTO and

PAMARIL (Solidarity of Residents Along the Railroad Tracks) had a combined strength of 63organisations, according to the Coalition of Concerned Citizens for the Urban Poor (CCUP) and

CUPAP. CUPAP affiliates were USP, PADD, SAMA-NA, PAMBO, AMBAR, BARIKADA,

CUPAP, ALYANSA, UMALPAS-KA and CAMAP operating in the municipalities of Tondo,

Navotas, Southern Manila, Las Pinas, Caloocan, Marikina, Quezon city and Pasay city. The

names of CUPAP affiliates presented here are acronyms. For a more detailed presentation see

CCUP-CUPAP, 1986 Appendix-E.

Documents

Post-Colonial Manila - Collective Movements & Counter-Managing City Crisis, 1946-1986