By Melissa Luz Lopez and Karissa Villanueva

“We’ve had enough.”

These were the words stressed by Occupy Mendiola protesters during their five-day campout activities from December 6 to 10, 2011.

The protest marked the beginning of the end of the one percent imperialist assaults to the rights of the remaining 99 percent of the population. The original Occupy Wall Street became Occupy All Streets as people from different parts of the world united to end the “unsustainable global system based on poverty, oppression, and violence.”

The same struggle took place in the Philippines to fight against budget cuts and crisis.

As expected, tension rose between the police and the protesters in both the Wall Street and the Mendiola versions of the Occupy Movement. Both resulted in injuries and damages to property.

However, the enforcement of police brutality against the Mendiola occupants was not in keeping with the “maximum tolerance” promised by the Philippine National Police (PNP). One of the issues that the protesters were fighting against was the violation of human rights. Ironically, how they were treated was a clear manifestation of such an ill in our current society. They were calling for change, but getting beaten by truncheons and being chased away by water cannons was the response they received. It was the government’s brutal way of saying no.

Moreover, the PNP also arrested five protesters for numerous charges: sedition, illegal assembly, resistance and disobedience to a person of authority, disturbances to public order, malicious mischief, and physical assaults.

But the arrests were primarily made because the protesters did not have permits.

“Mendiola Bridge is not a freedom park so they can’t just disturb the area with their protests. It is also near Malacañang, the seat of government, so what they are doing can be considered inciting [to] sedition,” Manila Police Department Station 3 Commander Supt. James Afalla told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

However, this did not justify the arrests made by the police. In a statement calling for their release, University of the Philippines President Alfredo Pascual said branding the campout as seditious was contrary to President Aquino’s principle of daang matuwid—it went against Aquino’s call for active public participation in governance.

“The campout is by no means the be-all and end-all in exposing Aquino and the deep-seated crisis of our backward politics and economy… [T]he activists succeeded in making the public see the current government’s low tolerance to mass actions for social justice, which is characteristic of elite, undemocratic governance,” Arnold Padilla, coordinator for Water for the People Network, an organization that promotes people’s control over water services and resources, said in his personal blog.

Although the Occupy Mendiola Movement only lasted for five days, it had successfully gained the attention of both the Aquino administration and the public. It was able to uphold the original Wall Street mission of calling for change against social inequality. However, grabbing the authorities’ attention is not enough. Government action is necessary for change to be carried out. It is only when social change has been manifested can the protesters declare their triumph.