By MARJUICE DESTINADO

SAN FERNANDO, CEBU – Renee Louise Co grew up in a lower middle-class household. Their dining table was too small to seat everyone, so meals were taken in shifts.

But if there was one place where they could all be together at once, it was the living room, gathered before the flickering light of a television or the crackling voice of a radio. This is where she first met politics.

Her father, drawn to world politics, talked about Barack Obama’s rise to the presidency and racism in the US. Her grandmother, glued to the radio, followed the Hello Garci scandal and explained what election fraud meant. Her mother brought in stories from the community.

Their home was a place where curiosity was encouraged. No one was told to blindly accept the world as it was. Instead, they were taught to ask, to challenge, to demand why.

A childhood measured in tears and typhoons

She was nine when she learned that sorrow could be borrowed. Her father, a man who loved poetry as much as politics, had written about the 1983-1985 Ethiopia famine and read it aloud to her in their living room.

“I remember crying so hard over it. We were just sitting beside each other, and I suddenly wanted to write too — so that the same emotion, about the terrible things happening in the world, could be shared with others,” she said in an interview with Bulatlat.

She joined campus journalism soon after. By Grade 5, she was writing about climate change at the National Schools Press Conference in Bicol, representing NCR.

Growing up in Malabon, she witnessed the impact of environmental neglect. “Flood waters entered our house. It was waist deep,” she said, having lived through three major floods,  namely typhoons Milenyo and Ondoy, as well as the 2012 Habagat. Seeing the destruction firsthand, she became aware of reckless environmental practices.

“That is why environmental advocacy is in my heart,” she said. “And of course, using our voice, our minds, our creativity as youth – because this is my lived experience.”

How Renee’s future took a different turn

Before law and activism, Co dreamed of becoming an astronomer, but family expectations and her growing awareness of the world led her down an unexpected path. While her mother encouraged a stable career in finance, Co’s love for science remained strong. Her interest in law sparked unexpectedly after the National Career Assessment Examination (NCAE) suggested it, along with forensic analysis, aligning with her scientific interests. At the time, Co was considering switching from Political Science to Anthropology at UP Diliman, which her family saw as unconventional.

Her passion for law grew as she saw it as a way to influence change, saying, “I really want to enter into policymaking, and one of the best means to that end is law.” Co became editor-in-chief of Sinag, the student publication of the UP College of Social Sciences and Philosophy, deepening her activism.

Co’s journey into activism was unexpected. As a child, she was quiet and introverted. But under the Duterte administration, silence became impossible. “It’s not enough to just know. We must raise political consciousness to action,” she said. Her family was initially shocked by her involvement, especially when she joined a lightning rally after graduation. Despite their concerns, Co reassured them that larger movements offered protection.

By 2021, she became the UP Student Regent and later the first nominee for Kabataan Partylist. While her family initially worried about her safety, they eventually supported her activism, understanding its significance. After earning her Juris Doctor degree in 2023, Co now serves as the national spokesperson for Kabataan Partylist and is the first nominee for the 2025 elections, continuing her fight for change.

Reclaiming education and students’ rights

Co has long fought for the youth, both in classrooms and on protest lines, advocating for a future every administration promises but fails to deliver. If Kabataan secures another term in Congress, their first priority will be education. “Education and students’ rights, as part of our right to education,” Co said, highlighting that education has never been the government’s budgetary priority, resulting in inadequate, inaccessible, and expensive education.

Kabataan plans to re-file the Adequate and Accessible Quality Education Services Bill to strengthen the Free Tuition Law, push for the Academic Freedom Bill, and the Students’ Rights Bill. They’re also focused on reforming the Campus Journalism Act to protect student publications better.

Beyond education, Kabataan advocates for workers’ rights with the Magna Carta for BPO and Waste Workers, and supports the People’s Green New Deal, a proposal to phase out fossil fuels and protect communities affected by destructive industries.

Co stressed that the youth are disillusioned, not apolitical. “It’s not because they don’t care, but because the government constantly disappoints them.”

Kabataan works beyond Congress, organizing youth, providing advocacy training, and encouraging them to actively fight for the change they want to see.

Legacy beyond titles

Co’s political awakening started with her grand-aunt, who was deeply aware of politics but couldn’t participate due to life’s hardships. “If you don’t work for a day, you won’t have anything to eat,” her grand-aunt often said. Co, recognizing the sacrifices her grand-aunt made, now fights in her place, attending mobilizations to fulfill the activism her grand-aunt couldn’t pursue.

But beyond Kabataan partylist and whatever position she holds, Co wants to be remembered simply as “a normal girl who chose to be an activist.”

“I think all of us are just ordinary people. We face the challenges that are posed our way as they come. But it is our choices that define not only ourselves but how we can shape the society that we’re living in, that we want others to live in, and we want other generations to enjoy.”

For Co, being an activist means fighting for the future — a future that will change the “deeply unjust, very bloody, and very profit-oriented status quo.” The struggles of finding work, accessing education, balancing classes, and even searching for one’s identity, she said, are all tied to economic injustice.

Co’s fight is a reflection of the collective. It’s about making the choice that tomorrow won’t be the same as today — because activism, at its core, is the power of choice. A choice to stand up.  A choice to demand better. A choice to fight for the future the government refuses to give. And if enough young people make that choice, the system will have no choice but to change. (DAA, RVO)

Editor’s note: The article has been updated to correct that the famine mentioned by Co’s father is the 1983-1986 Ethiopia famine and not the 2006 as earlier stated.