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People are tired. Tired of a government that keeps recycling corruption like it’s a national resource. Tired of leaders who treat public service as a business empire. Tired of being told to stay quiet, to get permits, to write safely, to obey rules written not to protect democracy but to silence dissent. On September 21, students from the University of the Philippines and other state universities will gather at Luneta. Not to beg from those in power but to remind the government of a truth it desperately fears: the youth are not spectators. We are the storm. The Philippine National Police has demanded permits, parading “order and safety” as their excuse. But the 1987 Constitution demands people otherwise: Article III, Section 4 guarantees freedom of speech, of expression, of peaceful assembly. No law, ordinance, or police memo can override that. To require a permit for what is already a right is to weaponize bureaucracy against democracy. And the youth know this. They see the hypocrisy in a system that allows plunderers to walk free but demands paperwork from protesters and activists. Let’s name it: corruption is bleeding this nation dry. Billions lost in overpriced confidential funds. Infrastructure projects ghosting taxpayers. Public officials who smirk at Senate hearings while Filipinos line up for food that never arrives. Students know these names, and they chant them in the streets: Marcos, Duterte, Romualdez, Estrada, Revilla. The faces change, but the rot remains. Same surnames every election. Same political dynasty. Same tactics but better crimes. That is why these protests matter. They are not noise, they are a diagnosis. They are the fever of a democracy fighting infection. And when the government tries to shut them down, it only proves that the sickness is real. The right to wear masks has also become a battlefield. Authorities accuse masked protesters of cowardice or criminal intent. But in a country where activists are red-tagged, jailed, or worse, killed, mask-wearing is not defiance. It is survival. It is the right of every Filipino to protect themselves from a government that bares its fangs not at plunderers and their corrupt playmates but at critics. Gen Z is often dismissed as “chronically online,” yet it is this very generation that has transformed the digital platform into a political ground. In 2020, they drowned out fake news machinery with hashtags and facts. In 2022, they filled the streets in pink, proving that idealism is not dead. Today, they are turning anger into strategy, building networks across places, uniting beyond hashtags and their own opinions. The protests are proof that the youth are not waiting for permission to reclaim their country. The world has seen this before. In Sri Lanka, young protesters forced a president into exile. In Chile, students lit the spark that rewrote a constitution. In Hong Kong, masks became the symbol of defiance. And in the Philippines, it has always been the youth, from the First Quarter Storm to EDSA who carried the torch when older generations faltered. History is not whispering anymore; it is shouting. And they are raging mad because of this long-happening suffering. Meanwhile, those in power cling to the narrative that protests destabilize society. What they refuse to admit is that corruption destabilizes society far worse. Poverty, hunger, and systemic theft destabilize families every day. The silence of leaders in the face of injustice is the real threat. And never the chants of students carrying their placards. These shouts of anger and cries are telling the Malacañang people that the youth see through the polished speeches and choreographed photo-ops. It tells every trapo who has fed on the nation’s blood that the next generation is not afraid to bare its teeth. It tells corrupt contractors and politicians involved in spoiling their families that we can see through our taxes. This is not about permits. This is not about masks. This is about who holds the real power. And for too long, that power has been hoarded by the corrupt and the complicit. On September 21, in Luneta, the youth will remind the Philippines that democracy is not granted by politicians, it is seized by the people. Silence is complicity. And Gen Z refuses to be complicit any longer.