(UPDATED) Sightings:

Chancellor Michael Tan at the Church of the Risen Lord and on Katipunan Avenue the asphalt road we now call

church of the people rising 

       U.P Diliman Chancellor Michael Tan walked hallowed ground: At the Church of the Risen Lord on campus last Sunday delivering a message to “keep the faith” — on occasion of the 69^th anniversary of the congregation. And last Friday when he walked the talk and walked with the people of Diliman, on Katipunan Avenue with a flock of thousands more of  students, faculty members, and staff, on the asphalt road we now call: Church of the People Rising.     

      The Katipunan protest sparked all of a sudden – impromptu — with no prepared program, agenda, or design; save the unplanned collective outrage over the assault on everything we hold dear since we ousted the dictator thirty years ago – now brought from the grave by the heirs, and being honored by a regime propelled to power by the dictator’s successors, in exchange for the dictator’s burial at the Heroes’ Cemetery…and more.       

         The Katipunan protest was the most massive in decades, and perhaps of all time — now sparking denials from no less than the President and his men,  disavowing that they knew anything of that day and the secrecy that preceded it.      

        Ancient bells pealed, ageless voices cried, sprightly boots and slippers marched and occupied a road named after the movement that overthrew the Spanish conquistadores one hundred twenty years ago. Skies transfigured from dusty to sweet drizzle when the Chancellor was called upon to address the congregation on the concrete we call the Church of the people awakening — climbing up a van turned into a makeshift stage literally slippery as the figurative slope we have to traverse if we don’t keep the faith — and keep fighting.

      (in the coming days: perhaps a flatbed truck, a pickup truck, or a jeepney for a makeshift stage would be possible: with flat hoods that can be used as steps to the roof, with flatter surfaces, more “bars” to hold onto, and less tricky to negotiate — but for people of uprisings past who have had to walk on top of Simba tanks and armed personnel carriers like Chancellor Mike, ain’t no van too slippery to climb to reach out to people. Photo shot by JDC during the Katipunan public assembly and tweeted by the same, liked by a thousand and more, used here non-commercially for academic purposes. On the walk home, Chancellor Mike, “marred” by requests for selfies, reminded the students to study hard for the final exams that are a-coming. We multi-task 🙂 ).