IT’S A STEAMY DAWN in downtown Manila—already hot though it’s only six thirty. A group of slim young men and women in their teens and twenties file out into the middle of a busy avenue, wearing white shirts, black pants, and purple headbands. The strains of Katy Perry’s “Firework” rise from a boom box, heavy on the bass. At other times, they dance to Aretha Franklin’s “Respect” or the Disney theme “Let It Go.” But this is a morning for fireworks.
The kids start to dance, with verve, as perfectly synchronized as a Broadway chorus line. They sing as they move, improvising as they go, riffing on Katy Perry’s lyrics in a mix of Tagalog and English—igniting the light inside them, letting it shine, showing the world what they are worth. They shout, strike poses, pump fists. “‘Cause baby, we are fireworks.” Cars roar in from all directions. Drivers honk, or tap their fingers through open windows. Motorcycles grind to a halt. Some yell at the dancers to move; others sing along. Then comes the chant: “What do we want? Decent jobs!” Again and again to the beat of the song. “Decent jobs for all.”
It takes forever to get anywhere in Metro Manila. One of the world’s most densely populated cities, it is also vast. In 2016, Manila had thirteen million people, twenty-three million if you count suburbs and ring-towns. The city center is choked by sprawling, smoky slums that are home to many young activists in the RESPECT Fast Food Workers Alliance. The poorest among them come from what Joanna Bernice Coronacion calls “danger zones”—where tin and cardboard shacks sit below sea level, flooding every time the inevitable rains and typhoons hit. It’s a world of mud and sewage, but also of song and dance.
Many of the best performers come from Bagong Silangan, a barangay known for high unemployment and excellent dancers, says Lei Catamin, a twenty-three-year-old choreographer, theater student, and labor organizer. When Coronacion and Catamin realized that poor kids were entering dance contests to make money for their families, they helped them create a Dancers’ Union of Bagong Silangan—DUBS. The name is an allusion to a globally popular genre of electronic dance music that grew out of reggae, hip-hop, and techno.1
Much of the Philippine workforce is under thirty and jobs are increasingly precarious; using young dancers to lead labor protests drew attention to these issues, Catamin says. “I was totally nervous, my first time to dance in the street,” says DUBS member Irene Remontal. “But seeing all the people stopped on the overpass and the vehicles watching us, at that moment, I felt joy.” Dancing for a cause feels great, says a nineteen-year-old male DUBS member. “Before I only danced to brag. Now with DUBS I dance for a purpose. Decent and secure jobs. Upholding women’s rights. These issues have impact on my and my family’s lives.”2
Lei Catamin used to represent his university in dance competitions. Then he realized that he could put his musical theater training to work for “something larger, more important. It’s good when you can use your talent and skills to show that young people need respect, that we need rights.” Now a youth organizer for the Alliance of Progressive Labor, Catamin has turned down higher-paying work “for the cause.”
Song and dance, Catamin believes, has attracted a new generation to a graying Philippine labor movement. “We started doing flash mobs to appeal to young people,” he says. “Instead of carrying protest signs, same old, same old, we perform. When people start to listen, clap their hands, maybe sing along, we know we are succeeding. The young dancers all understand that we are not performing for the sake of performance but for a larger purpose.”
And organizers work hard to ensure that performers understand the issues, says Catamin. “Before we take youth to a mobilization, we do education about wage theft, about sexual harassment, about labor rights. What is the impact on your life? On your community? On your family? They get it. They say: ‘Wow. I have been cheated, my mother, my brother have been cheated, for so many years.’ Then they know not just where they are going to dance, but why.”
Though music has been an important part of many social movements, young Filipino workers have turned musical theater into protest art. So much so that Manilans are used to encountering street scenes that appear to have been ripped from the sets of television musicals. On May 14, 2014, a day of global action, teenage fast-food workers line-danced their way through Manila, singing to the music from Disney’s animated hit Frozen.
Singing loudly, they urged fellow workers: “Let it go. Don’t hold back anymore. Let it go. Turn away. Slam the door.” They made up lyrics as they danced. Holding hands, they pulled workers from behind counters and into the streets, into the strike. They sang about rising as a new dawn broke. And they celebrated the end of fear. “Here I stand in the light of day,” they sang. If that brought a raging storm, that was fine. “McDonald’s never bothered me anyway.”
Flash mobs have become a signature of the Philippine labor movement. On International Women’s Day 2015, five thousand trade unionists danced in front of Manila’s Malacanang presidential palace, singing Helen Reddy’s 1972 hit “I Am Woman.” One year later, men danced wearing women’s shoes because “Walk a Day in My Shoes” is a slogan of the low-wage workers’ struggle everywhere. And during the 2016 global week of action by hotel housekeepers, DUBS dancers made the march a chorus line as hotel workers sang: “Women’s voices can shake the world.”
RESPECT’s best-known musical protest dance is the Aretha Franklin 1967 megahit for which the group is named. It’s Lei Catamin’s favorite. He breaks into dance, demonstrating his flashiest moves. Breathing hard, he chants, “R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I’ll tell you what it means to me.” Dancing and running. Then he freezes with his fist raised. He looks up and shouts: “Respect!” It’s not as easily quantified as a living wage. But it’s crucial.