Introduction

Actress Nora Aunor fan Nestor de Guzman says there were two reasons large crowds could be seen on the streets of the Philippines in the early 1970s: student demonstrations against President Ferdinand Marcos and Aunor's fans headed out to watch her latest film (Llanes 2008). As 1970 began, Aunor and Marcos took very different paths. For Aunor, 1970 was a fruitful year, yielding eighteen films produced by two different studios (Flores 2001, p. 214). For Marcos, a supposedly triumphant 1969 re-election – the nation's first second consecutive term for a president – descended into a chaotic three months known as the First Quarter Storm (Brillantes 1987). While the key to Aunor's success was her youthful appeal to the poor masses, the root of Marcos's troubles were also the youth and poor masses, specifically in the form of disenfranchised labourers and farmers reeling from the Philippines's debt and inflation brought about as a direct result of Marcos's expensive campaign for re-election the year before (Celoza 1997). The First Quarter Storm refers to the series of ‘demonstrations, rallies and strikes spearheaded by the student movement’ and joined by workers and farmers during the opening months of 1970 that resulted in the injury and the death of several students over the course of the year (Brillantes 1987, pp. 47-48).