Ang bayaning si Monico
Attended the tribute to Sir Nick , Prof. Monico Atienza last night at the UP Film Center. He remains unconscious, confined at the Philippine General Hospital since he fell into a coma last December 23, but its certain he knows that the Kilusan he has served so long, faithfully and well has not forgotten him.
The tribute was organized jointly by his colleagues in CONTEND (or the Congress of Teachers and Educators for Nationalism and Democracy) and friends, comrades in the First Quarter Storm Movement which he leads as president. It was well attended, and the friends, colleagues closest to Sir Nick gave such heartfelt speeches, especially Prof. Leoncio Co who has known Sir Nick since high school at the Far Eastern University. Prof. Co, like Sir Nick, was a political detainee and was tortured by the military.
They go back a long time, from being happy go lucky but brilliant students they became serious activists who led the UP student movement and the Kabataang Makabayan (KM).
Prof. Co spoke of his friend and colleague’s quiet strength in the face of severe physical and mental torture, and how he, Sir Nick, was able to overcome the limits imposed by the frailness and fragility of his health and body after he was released by the military in the late 70s, and his near death after being ambushed by the military in the mid 80s. Prof. Co described his friend’s sense of humor (much tempered by painful physical experience), his very focused attention to the details of analyzing and living as a revolutionary.
He shared how Sir Nick has always been a devoted activist, one who saw teaching as powerful and useful means of educating students to Philippine social realities and helping them see their place in society — not as palamunin ng sambayanan or boasters and braggarts or whiny, complaining middle class citizens, but as instruments of change. Servants of the exploited, tagapaglingkod sa mga manggagawa at magsasaka.
(As an aside, Prof Co was my teacher in Rizaliana or Philippine Institutions 100 when I was a sophomore, and I will never forget his classes because he was a witty, sharp and charismatic teacher. He gave graded recitations, he was a cross between Simon Colwell and Joey de Leon. To determine whether his students really read the assigned books and essays, he gave essay-writing exams; and graded them based on how you argued your point or substantiated your claim. He was all about analysis.)
There were also a lot of cultural numbers, with groups like Tambisan sa Sining, Pisara, Alay Sining performing. Friends and former students also gave musical tributes– Paul Galang and his group, Nato Reyes of Bayan accompanied Sara Maramag with his guitar, Jess Santiago.
It was a elegant, warm and beautiful tribute to a man who has given his all to the cause he believes in; to the student and teacher’s movement. A writer, a poet, a teacher, a friend, a comrade and a true servant of the people. He translated Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’ into Filipino, and he wrote numerous essays on language and its role in defining history, truth and struggle. He was a teacher who encouraged his students and became their guarantor when they couldn’t pay their tuition; he was a teacher who helped his students not only find jobs at the university, but to find meaning in their lives as they lived with and fought for the oppressed.
Sir Nick, all our love to you, and we hope to once more shake your hand, hear you laugh, and again walk alongside all of us on the long road to genuine freedom. Salamat nang marami sa iyong pagpapayo, paggabay, pagtuturo, pag-oorganisa at pagpapakilos sa laksa-laksang kabataang estudyante at kaguruan upang silang lahat ay maglingkod sa sambayanan.
—–
Liham para sa paghingi ng tulong para kay Prop. Nick Atienza mula sa FQSM
Dear Friends,
We are writing you on behalf of Prof. Monico M. Atienza, who
has been comatose since December 23, 2006. An undetected mass in his throat
gradually blocked air passage, which finally led to successive heart seizures.
Atienza is the president of the First Quarter Storm (FQS)
Movement, an organization of activists in the 1960s and 1970s. In various ways,
he has continuously helped and inspired activists of people’s organizations and
institutions, especially the youth and students.
As a political prisoner during martial law, Atienza was
heavily tortured and held in solitary confinement. Government intelligence
claimed that he was a ranking member of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of the Philippines and head of its National Organization Department when he was arrested in 1974.
Released in 1977, he went back to the university.As secretary-general of the militant Kabataang Makabayan
(Patriotic Youth) in the late 1960s, he was among the indefatigable architects
of the youth and student activism that eventually expanded to help establish
today’s formidable progressive mass movement in the Philippines.
In 1987, he survived an assassination attempt by a death
squad of the Philippine military which claimed the lives of two colleagues. Atienza’s
health, already deteriorated by the torture in 1974, all the more worsened with
the injuries he sustained in the incident. A shrapnel remains imbedded in his
head and a leg wound would not heal to this day.
Now confined at the Central Intensive Care Unit of the
Philippine General Hospital, Atienza is kept alive by a life support system.
His condition remains critically stable.
Atienza has no source of income other than his teaching at
the university. The meager health benefits available to him are not enough to
sustain the cost of hospitalization and probable therapy.
Let us all help a great comrade, mentor and friend.
Donations may be personally given to Bernardita “Didith” V.
de Guzman of the First Quarter Storm Movement or deposited to:
Bank: Bank of the Philippine Islands
Address: Diliman Branch, Quezon City, Philippines
Account Name: Alberto S. Aguilar
Savings Account Number: 4259-0220-91
Swift Code: BOPIPHMM
For Task Force Monico M. Atienza,
(Sgd.)
Bonifacio P. Ilagan
Chair, First Quarter Storm Movement
26 December 2006
