A democratic movement cannot be silenced by a subpoena

The lives of student activists are indeed colorful: they are students in the day, but will forever be organizers of the masses.

But when the state enforces its laws and serves subpoenas to the very youth whose calls for democracy shape our society, it is a message that echoes beyond the walls of AS, and any other edifice in our academic spaces.

The recent summons of student leaders, including University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman University Student Council chairperson Joaquin Buenaflor, marks another attempt to intimidate the very sector that has long stood at the forefront of social change. 

The PNP–CIDG justifies these actions under Republic Act No. 10973, claiming legality in its investigations of the September 21 demonstrations.

But the people who were involved in the rallies, may they be in Luneta, EDSA, or in Mendiola, have acted on a similar principle of agitation over the unjust actions done by those sitting in power. By those who have been placed in positions of public trust whose actions must, first and foremost, serve the people.

The pattern is clear: students who call out corruption and tyranny are met not with dialogue but with police visits and subpoenas. As Buenaflor said, “Napakabilis kumilos ng PNP pagdating sa paggipit sa aming mga kabataan, pero pagdating sa mga dambuhalang magnanakaw sa ating bayan, ang PNP ay tila bingi-bingihan, nagbubulag-bulagan.” 

Then, as now, students were vilified, red-tagged, and threatened for demanding land reform, national sovereignty, and genuine democracy. Yet history remembers them not as criminals, but as catalysts of change.

The state’s fear of the youth reveals its weakness. It fears those who question, those who organize, and those who refuse to accept the lies that sustain a decaying order. The government’s paranoia against student dissenters only proves that it is running out of legitimacy to stand on.

Still, the fact does not change. The PNP are hypocrites: they move swiftly to investigate unarmed student protesters, yet remain sluggish against the corrupt officials and plunderers who rob the nation blind.

And to what end would their motto be, “To serve and protect,” when they only seem to protect those who are willing to fill their mouths with food and their pockets with the plundered money of the Filipino people?

Yet imagine being scared of the youth who are simply aware of the rotten foundations of a system that prioritizes the interests of a few ruling elites and foreign powers over the welfare of its own people? 

Is it not proof that those who sit in the government are simply either buffoons or cowards, so as to think that the people would sit like sitting ducks while they flap their pockets full of the people’s money?

The proper response to this farce is not silence, but solidarity.  Solidarity among the workers, the students, the intellectuals, the patriotic statesmen: simply those who still care about tomorrow, and fear about today.

Yet the youth’s role does not end in defiance. To resist is only the beginning. The task of the youth and students is to advance the struggle for genuine democracy, to learn from the masses and serve the people; to stand with them in the fight for a society free of repression and puppeteering.

The youth should continue to immerse themselves with the people, to bring them the same level of equity that has long been denied to them.

Such is the real measure of what activism is: not merely to call for change, but to help build the conditions where change is no longer needed; where plunder can no longer exist.

And the challenge for us youth is much along the lines of what the KM, SDK, and MDP had been tasked with before. To study and prepare for service to the people, to organize and turn indignation into strength, to fight and create the foundation of a free Filipino people.

For every subpoena that aims to silence the youth, hundreds more will unite to struggle.

Only then would it be a piece of paper–paper that only weighed because of fear and power.