Protest Planking

the local youth scene.

Activists of an earlier time, however, may see planking as just a renaming of the so-called die-ins, wherein protesters also hit the ground, pretending to be corpses.

The LFS plankers occupied two lanes of the boulevard, timing their first move with the traffic light turning red at around 8 a.m.

They repeated this each time the stop sign went on, while other LFS members and allies from another youth group, Anakbayan, distributed leaflets to passing motorists.

Superintendent Jemar Modequillo, commander of Manila Police District’s Sampaloc Station 4, said his men initially allowed the group to proceed with their peaceful activity.

But later, Modequillo said, “we had to discourage them because they were causing heavy traffic already. Even if they were lying on the pavement while the traffic light was red, they were still obstructing traffic. They occupied almost half of España.”

A Malacañang official sounded more amused than impressed when told of LFS’s novel activity.