San Francisco – I can remember only two instances when I actually found myself lying flat on the ground on a public street as part of a political protest.

The first was unintentional.

It took place in 1984 during one of a series of U.P. Diliman marches to Malacañang. Our student council Chairman Lean Alejandro had told me that morning word was out that we were going to be dispersed. It was the third or fourth consecutive march to the palace, and Marcos the dictator reportedly was getting annoyed.

In any case, despite the warning, I wasn’t prepared for what hit us that afternoon. For that day, I painfully discovered that it was impossible to outrun teargas.

Well, I thought I was succeeding to do that. But then I got hit by what felt like a hundred needles piercing my lungs. Unable to breathe, I crumpled to the ground on Taft Avenue. But there was no time to lay around with the riot police on the attack. I quickly got back on my feet to join the retreat.

My next lie-down-on-the-street-to-fight-for-freedom moment came the following year during the national strike in Bataan.

This time it was intentional – but it wasn’t exactly part of the protest.
The strike, which lasted at least two days, was aimed at the regime, and specifically at the fiasco that was the Bataan nuclear plant. Late one night, fearing an assault, rally leaders – Lean was one of them –asked all of us to stay out in the street as a way to deter a military dispersal.

So I joined the hundreds on the street.

Well, the assault never happened.

Exhausted from marching all day, and following the lead of my fellow protesters, I laid down on the ground and, using my backpack as a pillow, went to sleep – right in the middle of the street.

Planking, in which one lies down as stiff as a board in unusual and even dangerous places, has turned into a popular form of protest in the Philippines.
It is puzzling that a fad which began in the West has been embraced by young Pinoy activists as a political tool.

For planking is really a gag, a quirky way of drawing attention on social networking sites.

You plank on a public staircase. You plank on a fence. You plank on a camel, or even in a freezer –then you post the picture online. It’s a weird fad which has been followed by other weird fads, such as “owling,” in which one poses like an owl, and “tea-potting,” in which one poses like a teapot.

Asked why he thought people were into planking, one kid interviewed on planking on Digitallife.com, says, “Because Facebook tells them to.”

And planking as protest isn’t even new.

For as others have pointed out and as my friend, journalist Glenda Gloria, noted on Facebook, what young Pinoys now call planking, we used to call ‘die-in.’ Still, the consensus on Glenda’s post was that outlawing planking or die-in or any kind of peaceful protest doesn’t really make sense.

Why in the world would you want to waste time on this issue, given other problems Filipinos are facing – such as expanding government support for public education?

It is another matter, of course, if the protest is successful – or it simply ends up annoying, and alienating the public.

But I will acknowledge one point that Rep. Winston Castelo, who proposed the planking bill, raised: that the risk of physical harm, even death, in planking protests is real.

I really wish these kids would instead demonstrate sitting down, or on their feet. After, all, it’s easier to do a kapit-bisig in that position. And Manila streets are so crazy anything can happen.

But then again, there are risks in virtually every form of protest. My lungs took quite a beating that afternoon in 1984. A year later, I came face to face with armed soldiers who blocked our march in Bataan and who looked like they were ready to use their M16s on unarmed civilians.

As a one-time student protester, I still sympathize with young people exploring ways to speak out for a cause, whether it’s for a higher budget for education, or against corruption and political abuse.

This I believe: Young Filipinos being willing to go out into the streets to protest, to speak out, to complain is a good sign. It is when they no longer care to get involved that we should worry.

Some of them may come across as loud, unreasonable, dogmatic, reckless, and totally annoying. But on the whole, they play a role. Sometimes, an important role – as we saw in the fight against dictatorship.

Telling students to forget about protests and focus on their studies, as one of PNoy’s flaks did recently, also doesn’t make sense.

Especially since these young people are protesting precisely because they know focusing on their studies will become harder to do with dwindling funds for their education.
____________
On Twitter @KuwentoPimentel
On Facebook at www.facebook.com/benjamin.pimentel