- Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Forty three years ago, Martial Law was devised and declared; days later, it was announced on National television, with promises of order and prosperity, threats of capture for those who would dare go against the decree, the voice of one man claiming power over one nation. Forty three years to the day, we are a people divided on the era that Marcos, in his quest for absolute power, seized and grasped by the palm of his hand, squeezing an economy of its promise, stealing from a nation's coffers and piling up billions to its debts, strangling a democracy and stripping its people of its right to speak. Forty three years to the day, and most of us have forgotten.
The shortness and selectiveness of our memory, coupled with the stealthy maneuvering of certain bodies whose goal is to rise to power once more and revise history and further erase the bloody footprints they have left on our land and streets, have all combined to create the cultural, historical amnesia so prevalent today.
Forty three years to the day and those from whom loved ones and friends were torn through abduction, incarceration, torture, and murder are still grieving their loss, and whom we are depriving of justice because we choose to be deaf and blind to their truths. The people who witnessed the horrors of Martial Law are still fighting to be heard, to educate, to inform, to make us see the light, because the opportunists and the people whose minds they have corrupted are creating a clangor meant to blind our youth to what truly transpired.
But there are those who refuse to believe that the crimes against humanity committed during Ferdinand E. Marcos' regime will go down in history as hearsay, as knowledge shared by few, as dust swept under the rug, as a mere whisper that fades and will continue
to fade as the winds of time blow by and away. We refuse to believe that decades down the line, our children will echo what they hear nowadays: that Marcos was a great president, that his regime was peaceful, that this country knew abundance during his time. We refuse to believe that Marcos will be remembered for everything that he was not; for seeing him otherwise would mean a great disservice, would mean dismissing the sacrifice of all those who paid the price of opening this nation's eyes and ears to the cruelty of that era. They have paid for it--and dearly--with their lives, and those lives could have been ours, they could have been us.
I take a stand because I have been told about and I have read the stories of those who had lived through that dark time. I take a stand because contrary to the glossed-over claims of the Marcoses, their cronies, and loyalists, there were elements more terrifying than one can imagine, but were stymied and put under guises--and claims--of peace and progress.
There was Alex Belone, a young Bicolano who was my father's classmate at the Naga Parochial School and who, my father told me, met a gruesome death after being captured by the military. He had taken a revolutionary stance against the dictatorship, joining the movement that sought to decry the atrocities of that time. As a UP student, he was active in the marches and public demonstrations of outrage, that condemned the crimes against humanity and blockades on freedom of speech rampant during martial law. Witness to the deaths of his co-students and companions, he continued to fight from the underground, locking arms with his equally passionate and fiercely concerned brothers in the movement.
When he was captured in 1980, he underwent torture, as was customary for anyone who dared speak, write, or go against the dictatorship in those years, and was eventually killed. His story does not end with his death. As a warning to everyone, the military tied his body to a tricycle and was dragged around the streets for all to see. I shudder at the thought, but I cannot help picturing the already badly bruised and beaten carcass of a man scraping the asphalt, scuffing skin and flesh and bones, further tearing the already torn sinews, blood staining the streets, countenance defaced.
This was a dead man in his 20's, unutterably helpless against whatever was being done to his lifeless body. During his wake, none of his friends and comrades could drop by because the military was nearby, on the prowl for any suspected members of the movement. In my mind, the mental picture of his family blurs from the cloak of sorrow I seem to have subconsciously painted on them. The cloak is dark, heavy.
This was Martial Law.
Another story that has stuck to my mind is that of poet Pete Lacaba. He was an activist, writing against the cruelty and corruption of the Marcos of those days, who, along with fellow writers Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr. and Ricky Lee, were wanted men for their roles during the First Quarter Storm. It is documented that the PSHS and the UP--among other campuses--were teeming with youthful, passionate rage at the injustices perpetrated by Marcos. They were jailed and tortured in ways too horrifying to stomach, that it took a while before any of them could take the time to sit down and come to terms with it, if they ever did, at all.
Pete Lacaba was detained in Camp Crame, subjected to regular and numerous forms of torture, when he heard that his brother, Emmanuel F. Lacaba, had been killed. Lourdes Gordolan, in her February, 2013 piece entitled "And My Life Flashed Before Me" published in Rogue, wrote:
"The dehumanizing treatment continued in Camp Crame, where Pete suffered through disparate acts of violence from prison guards for nearly two years. Whereas in the beginning the mental and physical torture may have been done under the guise of “interrogation,” eventually, as the 1975 Amnesty International Report describes, the brutal treatment was done for “no particular intent, except to inflict pain.”
'Pete remembers being called to the guardhouse, where the aging prison guard held up a newspaper in front of him. Its headline reported the death of Emmanuel Lacaba, an activist killed in a military encounter in Davao del Norte. He looked at Pete. “Are you related to this Lacaba?” the guard asked. Expressionless and still, Pete answered no. Emmanuel was Pete’s brother. It was the first time he heard news of his death.'"
These ongoings were common in those days, but well-hidden from the general public. These stories make up but a few drops in the bucket of many more, harrowing experiences of real people, but whose truths have been silenced by time and inaction in our part; by the denial and nonchalant shrugging off of those guilty of these crimes; and to add insult to injury, the passing off of that dark time as peaceful, orderly, and prosperous, and as some would say, manned by "the greatest president this country ever had". It makes one wonder if the word "great" has a different meaning for some.
Reading alone about the torture that these forgotten heroes had gone through is, by itself, painful--nail-pulling, burning the private parts with lighters and cigarettes, rape, beating, electrocution, and other unimaginably cruel methods. It grabs one by the heart and wrenches the soul.
The many senseless deaths--and we are talking thousands-- make one ask what one life is really worth. And the desaparecidos--those who have disappeared, by abduction, and many at the prime of youth--whose stories of suffering will never be told, make up another set of victims.
The Marcos loyalists harp on the economic progress supposedly created by their idol. This, in itself, is a very problematic claim, but it deserves an altogether different discussion, as it covers a huge scale of data, analysis, evidence, and form of discourse. Marcos' time was characterized by corruption, but the massive plunder is only half of the story. The human lives--damaged, broken, so gruesomely taken--account for the more significant part.
If we are to go by the respect for life and freedom that are of utmost importance if we ever value humanity, knowledge itself about the tortured and the murdered should be enough to make us want to say "no!" to another Marcos--their cronies and loyalists included--ever setting foot on any position of leadership. Time and again, they have made many attempts to revise this nation's history, to distort our perception and understanding of that truly dark period.
I am one with you in condemning these acts. May we seek to know and kindle the flames of enlightenment to those who are in the dark, because from the look of things, the Marcoses are once more making their footsteps echo loudly in our lands. May we not waver in this fight, for those who fought and died under this cruel regime, fought and died so that we may be in possession of the democracy we now have.
Blood spilt is blood spilt. Let no man erase their heroism.
Forty three years to this day, Martial Law was declared. May we never forget.
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