A Symbol of Anti-Marcos Resistance: The 1971 Diliman Commune in the Philippine’s Global Sixties

Karlo Mikhail Mongaya, Orly Van Andre Putong, Alec Joshua Paradeza, Ryan Cezar Alcarde

From February 1 to 9, 1971, students, faculty, staff, and residents at University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman took over the campus and defended what they called the“Diliman Commune” from brutal police incursions. This article ties together insights from key participants of the barricades with archival accounts and media reports to recover the lessons of the 1971 Diliman Commune from its dominant anti-communist framing as a radical destabilization plot to foment anarchy. Highlighting the voices of the barricades’ participants, this article reclaims the Diliman Commune as a symbol of resistance to the Marcos regime in a period of heightened anti-systemic contestation around the world described by social movement scholars as the Global Sixties.