DAKILA condemns the violent dispersal and mass arrests of youth protesters in Manila last September 21. Their actions are not acts of senseless lawlessness but the cry of a generation long abandoned by the very system meant to protect them.

Mayor Isko Moreno’s swift move to file charges and dismiss the protests as “rioting” erases the deeper realities of poverty, trauma from the drug war, and the daily indignities borne by Manila’s poor. We remind the Mayor: you once knew what it meant to be poor. These youth are not enemies of order—they are children of neglect, survivors of state violence, and victims of a city that has failed to provide safe spaces, education, and opportunity. Their anger, however chaotic, cannot be equated with the crimes of plunderers who have stolen billions, entrenched corruption, and left the poor to suffer.

Videos and testimonies contradict official claims that “no gunshots were fired” and “no one was killed.” Reports point to allegations that a gunshot triggered the chaos leading to the burning of a hotel in Recto. These demand an independent investigation. A government that claims to serve the people must face such accounts with transparency and accountability.

But beyond the smoke and anger, we must ask: who are the real criminals in this nation? Not children clutching stones in desperation, nor youth who march in rage—but those who plunder funds meant for schools, hospitals, and flood control; those who profit while workers cannot earn a living wage, families starve, and thousands are killed in the drug war. These are crimes committed not in anger, but in cold-blooded betrayal of the Filipino people.

It is easier to jail powerless teenagers than confront entrenched plunderers; easier to disperse protests than dismantle dynasties. Yet history remembers leaders who side with oppressors not for their firmness, but for their failure.

DAKILA stands with the youth, with all victims of poverty and state violence, and with every Filipino demanding a society where justice is not weaponized against the powerless but wielded against those who exploit them.

We call on Mayor Moreno and all leaders to:

DAKILA calls on Mayor Moreno and all leaders in positions of power to:

• Acknowledge the root causes of unrest — poverty, inequality, corruption, and violence.
• Pursue truth with transparency — review the videos, open an independent probe, and let the facts, not denials, guide justice.
• Guarantee equal access to justice — allow unimpeded access for the lawyers, social workers, and parents to properly examine, interview, and counsel the detained youth who are now experiencing illegal lengthened detention, as with how the Mayor responded to the equally injured state forces.
• Extract accountability from those whose crimes against the nation and whose impunity push the people toward drastic and incendiary action.
• Release the arrested youth who are victims of systemic neglect, not enemies of society.
• Remember the real enemy of the poor: not the young who protest, but the system that robs them of future, dignity, and life.

To criminalize anger while excusing corruption is to betray the people. The reckoning is not with the poor—it is with those who keep them poor.

DAKILA calls on fellow Filipinos: do not lose sight of the true enemy. Our demand for justice must outlast the mobilizations in Luneta, EDSA, and Mendiola, and push beyond punishing a few—it must dismantle the system of theft and injustice itsel