30/09/2026
FR. JOE DIZON: PRIEST OF THE PEOPLE
“Sandigan ang masa; paglingkuran ang sambayanan.”
That was the sum of Fr. Joe Dizon's life.
At the height of the Marcos Sr. dictatorship, Fr. Joe became one of the faces of the countless religious folk who chose to embody their faith and devotion through their commitment to political activism and social action.
The social teachings of the Church played a huge role in the conscientization of Fr. Joe, leading him to a life of prophetic struggle.
He immersed in the life of basic sectors, from landless farmers who sought to reclaim their land, to workers struggling for more humane wages, to fisherfolk fighting off threats against their livelihood, to urban poor eking out a living in the slums of Metro Manila.
But his immersion with the poor and the oppressed did not end with that. He further waved the banner of solidarity by becoming active in the people's movement for freedom and democracy during and after the Martial Law era.
He lent his support to workers' strikes and to those who unionized, despite the dictatorship's ban on these fundamental civil rights.
This was forged by his participation in the historic strike of La Tondeña workers in Tondo, Manila on October 24, 1975. Fr. Joe, along with Sr. Mary John Mananzan, helped workers who were clubbed in the picket lines, assaulted, or shoved into police buses by the dictator's armies. “My baptism of fire was the La Tondeña strike,” Sr. Mananzan recalled, “and Fr. Joe was with me.”
He was an integral figure behind the National Clergy Discernment Group which, according to Martial Law survivor and veteran activist Dr. Carol Araullo, “[counted] scores of priests nationwide in their renewed effort to find their “prophetic” role in Philippine society.”
Fr. Joe also never missed any chance to raise people's causes to the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), according to Dr. Araullo, through mechanisms such as Church-Labor or Church-Peasant conferences.
When he served as the National Director of the Basic Christian Communities-Community Organizing (BCC-CO), formed at the height of Martial Law, Fr. Joe helped in strengthening people's organizations and groups especially in the countryside to deal with important social issues, like military atrocities, landgrabbing, hamletting operations in so-called “rebel territories,” dismal wages, and rural dispossession.
BCC-CO was a crucial foundation of Church people's resistance to the dictatorship.
Still, Fr. Joe did not end with that. He supported the underground resistance to the Marcos Sr. regime by facilitating or providing safe havens for secret meetings to discuss the expansion of the protest movement against the regime.
In 1981, when Pope John Paul II visited the Philippines, Fr. Joe helped in the creation of the People's Alliance for the Pope's Arrival (PAPA), a multisectoral coalition that aimed to raise people's issues against the fascist dictatorship before the Pontiff himself.
After the brutal assassination of opposition leader Ninoy Aquino in 1983, Fr. Joe became a visible and steadfast leader of the open mass movement against the Marcos Sr. regime. He was a convenor, key figure, or leader of several broad and multisectoral alliances and formations that battered the dictatorship with street protests from 1983 to 1986: Justice for Aquino, Justice for All (JAJA); Coalition for the Realization of Democracy (CORD); Nationalist Alliance for Justice, Freedom, and Democracy (NAJFD); and BAYAN - Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.
In the innumerable street protests against Marcos Sr., whether along Ayala Avenue in Makati, in the hollowed ground of Liwasang Bonifacio, or across the trenches of Mendiola bridge, Fr. Joe would march with the people, rally them to oust the dictatorship (in the speeches that he delivered), and lend them spiritual boost by saying a Mass before the mammoth crowds.
He was involved in several campaigns waged against the dictator, including the 1984 boycott campaign against the sham Batasang Pambansa elections, the historic welgang bayan against the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), and the fight for human rights when the fascist attacks of the Marcos Sr. regime intensified.
Fr. Joe's participation in the anti-dictatorship struggle paved the way for its culmination at EDSA during those four days of the people's uprising on February 22 to 25, 1986.
But the EDSA People Power uprising did not put an end on Fr. Joe's committed faith and activism. In 1995, he helped in founding the Workers Assistance Center (WAC) in November 1995. WAC aimed to empower workers in the assertion of their basic rights. With Fr. Joe's guidance and leadership, it also became instrumental in organizing the Solidarity of Cavite Workers, a group that assists in the creation of trade unions in the province's export processing zones.
Apart from his persistent involvement with the labor movement, he was — once again — at the forefront of street demonstrations during the Estrada administration. He was a leader of the Estrada Resign Movement (ERM) and Plunder Watch, and had become a loud voice calling for his impeachment and ouster. It culminated in the Second EDSA People Power uprising in January 2001, twenty-five years ago this year.
During the Gloria Arroyo presidency, when the blatant cheating of the 2004 elections were exposed in the “Hello, Garci” scandal, Fr. Joe once again came out in the streets with the people to call for her impeachment. He became a leader of the Oust Gloria Arroyo Movement, among other broad political coalitions.
Further back, in 2001, just months after EDSA Dos, Fr. Joe helped secure to safety 60 families who bore the brunt of the military's counter-insurgency operations in Oriental Mindoro, a heavily militarized island where ten battalions of soldiers were sent. Mindoro was then under the clutches of the infamous Arroyo “Butcher,” Jovito Palparan. 30 activists had already been killed when Fr. Joe helped the 60 families by offering a huge Inay Maria statue to be used for processions.
The National Democratic Front (NDF) offered another anecdote into his life. One year after the infamous Hacienda Luisita Massacre (2004), “Fr. Joe [Dizon] led other priests in confronting the Presidential Security Group under General Delfin Bangit. The soldiers barred them from entering the parish church at the National Shrine of St. Michael the Archangel near Malacañang. Fr. Joe D demanded that the parish priest, Msgr. Ernesto Cruz, and his group enter the church and concelebrate the mass. Fr. Joe D prevailed over the objections of the soldiers.”
In 2007, Fr. Joe helped in the formation of election watchdog Kontra Daya.
His last political battle before his death was against corruption. In 2013, he joined in the Million Peso Marches in Luneta and EDSA to call for accountability for politicians who were involved in the multimillion-peso “pork barrel scam.” Among those implicated in the scam was the late Juan Ponce Enrile, the Defense Minister of the Marcos Sr. dictatorship, chief implementor of Martial Law's terror, and a key Marcos crony.
In their eulogy after Fr. Joe's death, the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP) said, “He was a priest whose communion table was especially for those who struggle to secure a national life free from the repression and violence of greed and power. To the poor he proclaimed hope that is made real in their unquenchable thirst for ‘the new heaven and the new earth.’ To those who oppress he proclaimed repentance and issued warnings with unwavering clarity that what they ‘sow shall they reap.’”
Today, we mark the 78th birth anniversary of Fr. Joe Dizon, a man of faith, street parliamentarian, patriot, priest of the toiling masses, and a true servant of the Filipino people.
More stories about Fr. Joe Dizon:
1. https://bantayog.org/dizon-jose-pacturayan-fr-joe/
2. https://www.bulatlat.com/2013/11/09/fr-joe-dizon-priest-of-the-people/
3. https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/520873/cavite-pays-tribute-to-activist-priest-joe-dizon/amp
