‘We Feel It… Martial Law is Back’
Marcos victims 30 years ago, still marching today. If there is anyone who knows what Martial Law was like, it would be people like Carmencita Mendoza-Florentino and Rodolfo del Rosario, who were both victims of the Marcos dictatorship. Many people thought that after Marcos’ ouster in 1986 no dictatorship would ever happen again, but Florentino and Del Rosario believe otherwise.
Carmencita “Miling” Mendoza-Florentino and Rodolfo del Rosario both look old enough to not be expected to join protest marches through thick vehicular smoke and under full noon heat, as they did in Manila last Sept. 21, the 34th anniversary of the declaration of martial law.
But not only did they join the march of protesters under the banners of Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya (Selda or Organization of Ex-Detainees Against Detention and for Amnesty) and other cause-oriented groups affiliated with the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance) from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) along España Avenue to the Liwasang Bonifacio (or Bonifacio freedom park): they were among the first to troop to UST for the assembly,
stayed at Liwasang Bonifacio all afternoon though black clouds threatened to pour rain on the sweat-drenched ralliers (and send them all to the sickbed the next day), and were among the last to leave the rally park. And it was not only because they wished to relive that dark chapter of the country’s past: it is because the dark hours are here again, they grimly said.
“When Marcos declared martial law, he destroyed all opposition", Mang Rudy said. “He abolished even Congress. He also abolished the vice presidency. So no one was left but himself. He ordered thousands opposed to him imprisoned".
“Now it’s different", he added. “There’s no declaration yet but many people are missing, many are being arrested, there are many being killed and disappeared. Likewise, those in the opposition like Pasay City Mayor Peewee Trinidad, who has been ordered suspended, and Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay, are also in trouble. They are being hunted one by one. And alongside martial law, if charter change succeeds then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may become prime minister and she may declare herself president for life. So it’s different but it’s headed in the same direction Marcos took."
‘We feel it’
“You know, we really feel it – because we experienced martial law – we’re now under martial law" Aling Miling said. “There’s just no declaration. You’re barred from speaking the truth, if you speak you get arrested. You get abducted. That’s what they terrorize people with these days, that’s why many are being abducted and killed."
Data from various human rights groups place the number of victims of extrajudicial killings under Marcos’ 20-year rule at 1,500. Data from Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) show 759 persons as having involuntarily disappeared during Martial Law. Military historian Alfred McCoy, in his book Closer than Brothers, said there were 35,000 torture victims all in all during the Marcos years.
Karapatan has recorded 755 victims of extra-judicial killings and 184 victims of enforced disappearances from 2001, when Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising, to September 2006.
When then President Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 1081, placing the Philippines under martial law, Aling Miling was the president of a women’s community association in Tatalon, Quezon City. There was a law then under which they were considered the legitimate occupants of the land where their dwellings stand, and yet their shanties were demolished, courtesy of the Araneta and Tuason families.
The women, she said, organized among themselves because the men then were being arrested. But, she would later learn, being a woman was no protection against arrest.
Traumatic first arrest
Her first arrest, which was in 1976, was particularly traumatic for her. She was brought to Camp Crame, then the Philippine Constabulary general headquarters in Quezon City, and was grilled by several officers, among them then Cols. Ramon Montaño and Rolando Abadilla. She thought she was going to be raped – and that probably would have happened, she said, if the torturers had not discovered she was from the Ilocos like many of them.
After her release two months later, she went back to community organizing and became involved in human rights advocacy through the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP), which had taken up her case. She would be arrested and detained two more times during the Marcos years.
Mang Rudy was a founding member of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM or Patriotic Youth), which was formed in 1964, and participated in the First Quarter Storm of 1970. When the Liberal Party opposition rally in Plaza Miranda, Quiapo, Manila was bombed in 1971, Marcos suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and he was among those arrested and detained as a result. He was still in prison when martial law was declared, but was released a year later.
At the Liwasang Bonifacio rally – which later in the afternoon was joined by the Concerned Lawyers for Civil Liberties (CLCL), Laban ng Masa (The Masses’ Fight), the Union of Masses for Democracy and Justice (UMDJ), the United Opposition (UNO), the Black & White Movement, and the Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya (KME or Nationalist Economy Movement) – observations and sentiments similar to theirs were being voiced out by the speakers and performers.
“Notice how Mrs. Arroyo is charting the same path of corruption and repression taken by both Marcos and Thaksin,” Bayan chairperson Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo said, referring to former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, deposed a few days ago through a coup d’ etat.
“Though there is no martial law declaration, it is just like we are under martial law,” said Joel Cadiz, a leader of the CLCL and a former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP). “More than 700 have been killed, among them lawyers and journalists. With these, it is like we are under a dictatorship.”
“My former boss appears as though she wants to be the next dictator,” said former social welfare secretary Dinky Soliman, one of the so-called “Hyatt 10” cabinet-level officials who resigned from office last year amid renewed allegations of fraud in the 2004 presidential election – where Arroyo is supposed to have won a fresh mandate three years after assuming power through what is now known as the People Power II uprising. “The killings of critics, the filing of sundry charges – all these Marcos did.”
Jess Santiago
All through the rally, the Jess Santiago composition “Martsa ng Bayan” (People’s March) kept playing: “Tayo na at magsama-sama/Sa pagdurog sa imperyalista/Tayo na at magkaisa/Lansagin ang pasistang diktadura/Nasa atin ang tunay na lakas/Tiyak na nasa atin ang bukas...” The song was composed in the 1980s and became an anti-dictatorship classic.
Santiago, still the reed-thin bespectacled man that he was two decades ago but now with his still-long hair graying, would himself stir the crowd – numbering about 10,000 – with a passionate rendition of his song “Halina,” composed 30 years ago and telling tales of a unionist and a peasant slain by state agents, and an urban poor family driven from their “home” near a garbage dump. “What the song tells us about is still happening", Santiago told the audience in a calm but emphatic voice.
The late strongman’s eldest daughter, Imee, ranked as 11th among more than 20 political figures in Pulse Asia’s July survey on senatorial preferences – scoring even higher than noted anti-dictatorship fighters like Sen. Joker Arroyo and Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Satur Ocampo.
Asked to comment on this, being victims of the Marcos regime, both Aling Miling and Mang Rudy said they didn’t think the particular survey was able to reflect the general pulse accurately enough. They don’t think people have forgotten, they said.
“I don’t know if she can really win", Mang Rudy said, referring to Imee who is said to be planning to run for senator next year.
“While the victims are alive, we will continue to tell the world: this is what was done to us", said Aling Miling.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
Marcos victims 30 years ago, still marching today. If there is anyone who knows what Martial Law was like, it would be people like Carmencita Mendoza-Florentino and Rodolfo del Rosario, who were both victims of the Marcos dictatorship. Many people thought that after Marcos’ ouster in 1986 no dictatorship would ever happen again, but Florentino and Del Rosario believe otherwise.
Carmencita “Miling” Mendoza-Florentino and Rodolfo del Rosario both look old enough to not be expected to join protest marches through thick vehicular smoke and under full noon heat, as they did in Manila last Sept. 21, the 34th anniversary of the declaration of martial law.
But not only did they join the march of protesters under the banners of Samahan ng mga Ex-Detainee Laban sa Detensyon at para sa Amnestiya (Selda or Organization of Ex-Detainees Against Detention and for Amnesty) and other cause-oriented groups affiliated with the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan or New Patriotic Alliance) from the University of Santo Tomas (UST) along España Avenue to the Liwasang Bonifacio (or Bonifacio freedom park): they were among the first to troop to UST for the assembly,
stayed at Liwasang Bonifacio all afternoon though black clouds threatened to pour rain on the sweat-drenched ralliers (and send them all to the sickbed the next day), and were among the last to leave the rally park. And it was not only because they wished to relive that dark chapter of the country’s past: it is because the dark hours are here again, they grimly said.
“When Marcos declared martial law, he destroyed all opposition", Mang Rudy said. “He abolished even Congress. He also abolished the vice presidency. So no one was left but himself. He ordered thousands opposed to him imprisoned".
“Now it’s different", he added. “There’s no declaration yet but many people are missing, many are being arrested, there are many being killed and disappeared. Likewise, those in the opposition like Pasay City Mayor Peewee Trinidad, who has been ordered suspended, and Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay, are also in trouble. They are being hunted one by one. And alongside martial law, if charter change succeeds then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may become prime minister and she may declare herself president for life. So it’s different but it’s headed in the same direction Marcos took."
‘We feel it’
“You know, we really feel it – because we experienced martial law – we’re now under martial law" Aling Miling said. “There’s just no declaration. You’re barred from speaking the truth, if you speak you get arrested. You get abducted. That’s what they terrorize people with these days, that’s why many are being abducted and killed."
Data from various human rights groups place the number of victims of extrajudicial killings under Marcos’ 20-year rule at 1,500. Data from Karapatan (Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights) show 759 persons as having involuntarily disappeared during Martial Law. Military historian Alfred McCoy, in his book Closer than Brothers, said there were 35,000 torture victims all in all during the Marcos years.
Karapatan has recorded 755 victims of extra-judicial killings and 184 victims of enforced disappearances from 2001, when Arroyo was catapulted to power through a popular uprising, to September 2006.
When then President Ferdinand Marcos issued Presidential Decree No. 1081, placing the Philippines under martial law, Aling Miling was the president of a women’s community association in Tatalon, Quezon City. There was a law then under which they were considered the legitimate occupants of the land where their dwellings stand, and yet their shanties were demolished, courtesy of the Araneta and Tuason families.
The women, she said, organized among themselves because the men then were being arrested. But, she would later learn, being a woman was no protection against arrest.
Traumatic first arrest
Her first arrest, which was in 1976, was particularly traumatic for her. She was brought to Camp Crame, then the Philippine Constabulary general headquarters in Quezon City, and was grilled by several officers, among them then Cols. Ramon Montaño and Rolando Abadilla. She thought she was going to be raped – and that probably would have happened, she said, if the torturers had not discovered she was from the Ilocos like many of them.
After her release two months later, she went back to community organizing and became involved in human rights advocacy through the Task Force Detainees of the Philippines (TFDP), which had taken up her case. She would be arrested and detained two more times during the Marcos years.
Mang Rudy was a founding member of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM or Patriotic Youth), which was formed in 1964, and participated in the First Quarter Storm of 1970. When the Liberal Party opposition rally in Plaza Miranda, Quiapo, Manila was bombed in 1971, Marcos suspended the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus and he was among those arrested and detained as a result. He was still in prison when martial law was declared, but was released a year later.
At the Liwasang Bonifacio rally – which later in the afternoon was joined by the Concerned Lawyers for Civil Liberties (CLCL), Laban ng Masa (The Masses’ Fight), the Union of Masses for Democracy and Justice (UMDJ), the United Opposition (UNO), the Black & White Movement, and the Kilusang Makabansang Ekonomiya (KME or Nationalist Economy Movement) – observations and sentiments similar to theirs were being voiced out by the speakers and performers.
“Notice how Mrs. Arroyo is charting the same path of corruption and repression taken by both Marcos and Thaksin,” Bayan chairperson Dr. Carol Pagaduan-Araullo said, referring to former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, deposed a few days ago through a coup d’ etat.
“Though there is no martial law declaration, it is just like we are under martial law,” said Joel Cadiz, a leader of the CLCL and a former president of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP). “More than 700 have been killed, among them lawyers and journalists. With these, it is like we are under a dictatorship.”
“My former boss appears as though she wants to be the next dictator,” said former social welfare secretary Dinky Soliman, one of the so-called “Hyatt 10” cabinet-level officials who resigned from office last year amid renewed allegations of fraud in the 2004 presidential election – where Arroyo is supposed to have won a fresh mandate three years after assuming power through what is now known as the People Power II uprising. “The killings of critics, the filing of sundry charges – all these Marcos did.”
Jess Santiago
All through the rally, the Jess Santiago composition “Martsa ng Bayan” (People’s March) kept playing: “Tayo na at magsama-sama/Sa pagdurog sa imperyalista/Tayo na at magkaisa/Lansagin ang pasistang diktadura/Nasa atin ang tunay na lakas/Tiyak na nasa atin ang bukas...” The song was composed in the 1980s and became an anti-dictatorship classic.
Santiago, still the reed-thin bespectacled man that he was two decades ago but now with his still-long hair graying, would himself stir the crowd – numbering about 10,000 – with a passionate rendition of his song “Halina,” composed 30 years ago and telling tales of a unionist and a peasant slain by state agents, and an urban poor family driven from their “home” near a garbage dump. “What the song tells us about is still happening", Santiago told the audience in a calm but emphatic voice.
The late strongman’s eldest daughter, Imee, ranked as 11th among more than 20 political figures in Pulse Asia’s July survey on senatorial preferences – scoring even higher than noted anti-dictatorship fighters like Sen. Joker Arroyo and Bayan Muna (People First) Rep. Satur Ocampo.
Asked to comment on this, being victims of the Marcos regime, both Aling Miling and Mang Rudy said they didn’t think the particular survey was able to reflect the general pulse accurately enough. They don’t think people have forgotten, they said.
“I don’t know if she can really win", Mang Rudy said, referring to Imee who is said to be planning to run for senator next year.
“While the victims are alive, we will continue to tell the world: this is what was done to us", said Aling Miling.
BY ALEXANDER MARTIN REMOLLINO
Bulatlat
