
Most of the local movements were affiliated with the Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid (PKM, National Peasant Union). Īfter World War II, protest movements–mostly peasant and workers’ unions–re-emerged. Members who managed to evade arrest joined guerilla groups, such as the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (The Nation’s Army Against the Japanese, HUKBALAHAP).
When the Second World War broke out in the Philippines, labor groups like the Kalipunang Pambansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (KPMP, National Association of Peasants in the Philippines) and the Aguman ding Maldang Taga-Obra (AMT, Union of Peasant Workers) were among the first organizations to be broken up by the Japanese.
With its provincial base fractured, the Sakdal party collapsed. The uprising failed, with at least 60 Sakdalistas dead and 40 injured. On May 2, 1935, the nonviolent campaign degenerated into an armed conflict with Sakdalistas armed with clubs, bolos, sickles, daggers, old pistols, and homemade guns faced off against Philippine Constabulary units in several towns around Manila.
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They boycotted foreign goods (particularly American automobiles), refused to pay taxes, pulled their children out of pro-foreign school, and refused to patronize stores owned by “enemies of Independence.” When municipal officials tried to suppress the Sakdalistas in the provinces through police harassment, arrest, and denying their right of free assembly, the Sakdalistas took to the streets in protest.
The Sakdalistas demanded nothing less than “absolute and immediate” independence, the abolition of most taxes, the distribution of land to the poor, the protection of workers’ rights, the nationalization of industries, the close monitoring of politicians, the retention of lawyers for poor defendants, the formation of a 500,000-strong Philippine Army, the use of regional languages in public schools, the investigation of friar estates and ill-gotten Church wealth, and the “adoption of voting machines to prevent election frauds.” At the end of 1931, the movement launched Mapayapang Pagsuway (Peaceful Disobedience), inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s nonviolent civil disobedience in India. The movement eventually led to the formation of the Partido Sakdal on October 29, 1933. Through his newspaper Sakdal, Ramos managed to build a large popular base of supporters in Luzon.
Benigno Ramos’ Sakdal movement gave the American and FIlipino authorities the most cause for alarm in the 1930s. Among them was Benigno Ramos, a government employee who would later form the Sakdal (“to accuse”) movement. The students invited their parents and other sympathizers to join their cause. The following month, students at Manila North High School instigated rallies for the dismissal of Mabel Brummitt, an American teacher who insulted her students. A memorial service at Luneta Park was attended by 15,000 people the service turned into a protest rally demanding independence from the United States. In January 1930, Filipino workers in Watsonville, California were beaten up by Caucasian workers, resulting in the death of a Filipino lettuce picker.
Racial conflict between Caucasian Americans and Filipinos only exacerbated matters. As such, upward mobility was still very difficult. The “paradoxical character of American policy” was enlightened on paper, but insufficient in practice: despite mass education, increased literacy, public health programs, and improvements in transportation, poorly planned economic policies undid them.
According to David Sturvenant, the Filipinization of the government did little to change the values of the landed elite.
Street protests began to gain popularity as a method of expressing public discontent in the 1920s due to poverty in the provinces and cities. Led by Dominador Gomez and attended by over 100,000 people, the rally culminated in the arrest of several members as well as the harassment of workers’ groups in the succeeding months. On May 1, 1903, the Union Obrera Democratica de Filipinas (UODF, known formerly as the Union Obrera Democratica), the first workers’ union in the country, staged a massive rally calling for an eight-hour working day and the recognition of May 1 as a public holiday. Most of the first street rallies were conducted by laborers and peasants. Filipinos have been taking to the streets in protest for more than a century.