21/09/2025
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Today, September 21, thousands of people flooded the streets of Manila, Cebu, Iloilo, Bacolod, Davao, and beyond, to demand accountability over corruption in flood control projects. Commentators and cynics alike asked, what difference does one day of protest make? For them, rallies are flashpoints of noise โ bright for a moment, then smoldering into silence the next day. Their argument is not baseless. Fire, after all, burns hot but fades quickly if not sustained.
And perhaps they are right to worry. Philippine history is lined with uprisings that spark with righteous rage only to be extinguished by exhaustion, repression, or the return of old political habits. In a nation where corruption thrives in cycles, is another protest anything more than smoke dissipating into the air?
Yet, to see September 21 as just another rally is to miss its potential. Across the globe, flames have spread far enough to consume the old and birth the new. In Nepal, it was young people โ Generation Z foremost, who led a wave of protests strong enough to topple a government just this month. In Indonesia, student movements repeatedly light the torch of dissent, reminding their leaders that complacency will not be tolerated. The truth is uncomfortable, successful revolutions are rarely neat, carefully engineered affairs. They begin with sparks, often spontaneous, but are only sustained when citizens โ especially the young, feed the fire with persistence and discipline.
It is no wonder then that Josรฉ Rizal declared, โAng kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan.โ Adults, by and large, have delivered us here, by casting their votes for dynasties, by tolerating patronage, by shrugging at theft cloaked as โpublic service.โ It falls upon students, the informed and the daring, to correct these mistakes. Not merely to shout in the streets, but to study, to debate, to organize, and to insist on a different future. Protest without understanding is tinder that burns too quickly. Protest with knowledge is coal that glows long after the flames.
But the responsibility of our generation extends beyond today. September 21 may yet carve itself into history, but protest is not a date circled on a calendar, it is a continuing struggle for justice and accountability. The real danger is not in the fire dying from suppression, it is in us treating it as a passing trend. The online conversation on โnepo babiesโ in government families โ those born into privilege, flaunting wealth on social media, reminds us of this trap. Compare their luxuries to the realities of most students. Cramming assignments on unreliable Wi-Fi, trudging through flooded streets, enduring packed jeepneys, worrying about tuition deadlines. Their comfort exists alongside our burdens, and their privilege is often built on the very corruption we denounce today.
So let it be clear, September 21 is not the finale but the overture. If we light the streets today with anger, we must keep it alive tomorrow with persistence. Campus discussions, student organizations, volunteer work, independent journalism, community action โ these are the logs we throw into the fire, so it does not die.
To our fellow students, this is our responsibility. To be young is not just to inherit the nationโs problems, but to forge its solutions. History remembers flames, yes โ but it honors those who made them endure.
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