the First Quarter Storm, coincided with another issue, which was the call for the UP College of Agriculture to become independent from the University of the Philippines in Diliman. When martial law was declared in September 1972, Marcos cracked down on any form of criticism or activism, leading to the arrest of many of Los Baños residents. Among those who experienced arrest and torture during martial law were the UPLB Institute of Chemistry's Dr. Aloysius Baes, while among those who became desaparecidos were Tish Ladlad, Cristina Catalla, Gerardo "Gerry" Faustino, Rizalina Ilagan, Ramon Jasul, and UPLB Professor Jessica Sales. Among those confirmed to have been martyred for their beliefs were Modesto "Bong" Sison, and Manuel Bautista, the student leader who had spearheaded the establishment of UPLB's Textbook Exchange and Rental Center (TERC). Later in 1972, UPCA formally requested Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos to allow the college to secede from the University of the Philippines due to the alleged withholding of its budget and the disapproval of curricular proposals. However, UP President Salvador P. Lopez strongly opposed the idea. A survey found that there was very little support for complete independence at UPCA. As a compromise, Lopez proposed the transformation of UP into a system of autonomous constituent universities. Finally, on 20 November 1972, Presidential Decree No. 58 was signed, establishing UPLB as UP's first autonomous campus, with UPCA, College of Forestry, Agricultural Credit and Cooperatives Institute, Dairy Training and Research Institute, and the Diliman-based Agrarian Reform Institute as its first academic units. New colleges and research centers were created over the next few years, while the College of Veterinary Medicine was likewise transferred to UPLB from UP Diliman. The establishment of UPLB as an autonomous campus also saw the establishment of the UPLB Perspective as its student paper in 1973 – earning it the distinction of being one of the first student newspapers to be allowed to publish after the September 1972 martial law crackdown on newspapers and other media establishments. Violent crime incidents in the UPLB community, with some resulting in the deaths of students (Eileen Sarmenta and Allan Gomez in 1993, Given Grace Cebanico in 2011, Ray Bernard Peñaranda and Maria Victoria Reyes in 2012) were widely covered by the national media. As a result, national government agencies, the local government of Los Baños, and the university administration have enacted more stringent security measures. In recent years, the