Sir Nick needs our help

Got this letter from Julie just now. One of our consulting editors at the PJR Reports, Luis Teodoro, told me about the sad case of UP Prof. Monico Atienza last January 3.

I may have been Prof. Atienza's student for just one semester (PI 100 or Philippine Institutions), but I remembered how great a teacher he is. He may appear too intense and passionate for some, but one thing is sure: He loves the Philippines deeply. With people like Sir Nick, hope flickers for this country.

Let us help Sir Nick, along with our hope to see a better Philippines.

Dear Friends,

We are writing you on behalf of Prof. Monico M. Atienza, who has been comatose since December 23, 2006. An undetected mass in his throat gradually blocked air passage, which
finally led to successive heart seizures.

Monico is the president of the First Quarter Storm (FQS) Movement, an organization of activists in the 1960s and 1970s. In various ways, he has continuously helped and inspired activists of people’s organizations and institutions, especially the youth and students.

As a political prisoner during martial law, Monico was heavily tortured and held in solitary confinement. Government intelligence claimed that he was a ranking member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines and head of its National Organization Department when he was arrested in 1974. Released in 1977, he went back to the university.

As secretary-general of the militant Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth) in the late 1960s, he was among the indefatigable architects of the youth and student activism that eventually
expanded to help establish today’s formidable progressive mass movement in the Philippines.

In 1987, he survived an assassination attempt by a death squad of the Philippine military which claimed the lives of two colleagues. Monico’s health, already deteriorated by the torture in 1974, all the more worsened with the injuries he sustained in the incident. A shrapnel remains embedded in his head and a leg wound would not heal to this day.

Now confined at the Central Intensive Care Unit of the Philippine General Hospital, Monico is kept alive by a life support system. His condition remains critically stable.

Monico has no source of income other than his teaching at the university. The meager health benefits available to him are not enough to sustain the cost of hospitalization and probable
therapy.

Let us all help a great comrade, mentor and friend.

Donations may be personally given to Bernardita “Didith” V. de Guzman of the
First Quarter Storm Movement or deposited to:

Bank: Bank of the Philippine Islands

Address: Diliman Branch, Quezon
City, Philippines

Account Name: Alberto S. Aguilar

Savings Account Number: 4259-0220-91

Swift Code: BOPIPHMM


For Task Force Monico M. Atienza,

(Sgd.)

Bonifacio P. Ilagan

Chair, First Quarter Storm Movement



From what I heard around, UP won't let him take a leave in his teaching post because he had used up all his leave requests. But granted that it is, but, ano ba naman UP. Do you want to lose one of your best teachers just because of this? The UP I know is not just intelligent, but also rational-minded and compassionate.