Abstract:
Student activism plays a prominent role in the advancement of social movements within
the Philippines. However, inquiry and analysis that looks into the Philippine context is limited
and temporally bound. Current definitions and models of student activism fail to consider the
nuances of the phenomena, causing an insufficiency of explaining the phenomenon. As such, the
study seeks to look into the lived experiences of student activists with the goal of understanding
and characterizing the phenomenon as retrieved from the grassroots. The study characterizes
Filipino NDMO student activism as the constant and cyclical conduct of student activism guided
by the Arouse, Organize, and Mobilize (AOM) framework, looking into the activities,
motivations, and interactions that occur during the conduct of student activism. It is in this
context that the study investigates the phenomenon of student activism and characterizes the
definition making process of those engaged with the movement through the conceptualization of
a new model of student activism called the “Contemporary Student Activism Model”. This
model seeks to capture a wider, contextual, and more complete image of the phenomena,
encapsulating the nuances of the NDMO student activist movement in the Philippines.
